P6PACTDN 


JO 


BN-8URRO!' 


3%  B.  |JL  ^tli  ptrarg 


^toril}  (Eanrlma  JSiate  Caikge 


f 


N.C.  STATE  UNIVERSITY     D.H.  HILL  LIBRARY 


S00211600  A 


*hfctio 

QH81  2192 

B95     Burroughs^    John 

AUTHOR 


Pepactotfr  Jjjj^r 


TITLE 


2J9Z. 


DATE    DUE 


BORROWER'S    NAME 


2t*    -/?*. 


%  l**k 


jQ,  ft,  L 


# 

_J^ IK 

BjLafijaa. 
5Fc47  S 


A 


/" 


> 


2H2. 


5Ft47.S 


S.Mr'48  B 


hoofed  bp  Uobn  ^Surrouffljfi. 


WORKS.  New  Riverside  Edition.  With  several 
Portraits  of  Burroughs,  and  engraved  Title-pages. 
Printed  from  entirely  new  plates.  10  vols.  i2mo, 
cloth,  gilt  top,  the  set,  $15.00,  net  ;  uncut,  paper 
labels,  #15.00,  net ;  half  calf,  gilt  top,  $30.00,  net. 

RlVERBY. 

Wake-Robin. 

Winter  Sunshine. 

Locusts  and  Wild  Honey. 

Fresh  Fields. 

Indoor  Studies. 

Birds  and  Poets,  with  Other  Papers. 

Pepacton,  and  Other  Sketches. 

Signs  and  Seasons. 

Whitman  :  A  Study. 

The  Same.     Each  volume,  i6mo,  gilt  top,  $1.25;  the 
set,  10  vols.,  uniform,  $12.50;  half  calf,  $22.50. 

WAKE-ROBIN.     Riverside  Aldine  Series.      i6mo, 

$1.00. 


HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY, 
Boston  and  New  York. 


PEPACTON 


BY 


JOHN    BURROUGHS 


BOSTON    AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 

(£fre  Iftrticrstbe  press,  Ca.nbntirrr 

1897 


Copyright,  1881.  1895, 
By  JOHN  BURROUGHS, 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Co. 


PEEFACE 

I  have  all  the  more  pleasure  in  calling  my  book 
after  the  title  of  the  first  chapter,  "  Pepacton,"  be- 
cause this  is  the  Indian  name  of  my  native  stream. 
In  its  watershed  I  was  born  and  passed  my  youth, 
and  here  on  its  banks  my  kindred  sleep.  Here,  also, 
I  have  gathered  much  of  the  harvest,  poor  though 
it  be,  that  I  have  put  in  this  and  in  previous  vol- 
umes of  my  writings. 

The  term  "  Pepacton  "  is  said  to  mean  "  marriage 
of  the  waters ; '  and  with  this  significance  it  suits 
my  purpose  well,  as  this  book  is  also  a  union  of  many 
currents. 

The  Pepacton  rises'  in  a  deep  cleft  or  gorge  in  the 
mountains,  the  scenery  of  which  is  of  the  wildest 
and  ruggedest  character.  For  a  mile  or  more  there 
is  barely  room  for  the  road  and  the  creek  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  chasm.  On  either  hand  the  mountains, 
interrupted  by  shelving,  overhanging  precipices,  rise 
abruptly  to  a  great  height.  About  half  a  century 
ago  a  pious  Scotch  family,  just  arrived  in  this  coun- 
try, came  through  this  gorge.  One  of  the  little  boys, 
gazing  upon  the  terrible  desolation  of  the  scene, 
unlike  in  its  savage  and  inhuman  aspects  anything 


A 


vi  PREFAl  I 

he  had  ever  seen  at  home,  nestled  close  to  his  mother, 
and  asked  with  bated  breath,  "Mither,  is  there  a 
God  here  ?  " 

Set  the  Pepacton  is  a  placid  current,  especially  in 
its  upper  portions,  where  my  youth  fell ;  but  all  its 
tributaries  are  swift  mountain  brooks  fed  by  springs 
the  best  in  the  world.  It  drains  a  high  pastoral 
country  Lifted  into  long,  round-backed  hills  and  rug- 
ged, wooded  ranges  by  the  subsiding  impulse  of  the 
Catskill  range  of  mountains,  and  famous  for  its  supe- 
rior dairy  and  other  farm  products.  It  is  many  long 
years  since,  with  the  restlessness  of  youth,  I  broke 
away  from  the  old  ties  amid  those  hills ;  but  my 
heart  has  always  been  there,  and  why  should  I  not 
come  back  and  name  one  of  my  books  for  the  old 
stream  ? 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  Pepacton  :   A  Summer  Voyage     ....        1 
II.  Springs .35 

III.  An  Idyl  of  the  Honey-Bee 53 

IV.  Nature  and  the  Poets 79 

V.  Notes  by  the  Way 115 

VI.   Footpaths 1"5 

VII.  A  Bunch  of  Herrs 185 

VIII.   Winter  Pictures 213 

Index 235 


*Cjj 


PEPACTON 


PEPACTON:    A   SUMMER   VOYAGE 

~TT7~HEISr  one  summer  day  I  bethought  me  of 
*  *  a  voyage  down  the  east  or  Pepacton  branch 
of  the  Delaware,  I  seemed  to  want  some  excuse  for 
the  start,  some  send-off,  some  preparation,  to  give 
the  enterprise  genesis  and  head.  This  I  found  in 
building  my  own  boat.  It  was  a  happy  thought. 
How  else  should  I  have  got  under  way,  how  else 
should  I  have  raised  the  breeze  ?  The  boat-building 
warmed  the  blood ;  it  made  the  germ  take  ;  it  whetted 
my  appetite  for  the  voyage.  There  is  nothing  like 
serving  an  apprenticeship  to  fortune,  like  earning 
the  right  to  your  tools.  In  most  enterprises  the 
temptation  is  always  to  begin  too  far  along;  we 
want  to  start  where  somebody  else  leaves  off.  Go 
back  to  the  stump,  and  see  what  an  impetus  you 
get.  Those  fishermen  who  wind  their  own  flies 
before  they  go  a-fishing,  — how  they  bring  in  tin- 
trout;  and  those  hunters  who  run  their  own  bullets 
or  make  their  own  cartridges,  — the  game  is  already 
mortgaged  to  them. 


2  PEPACTON 

When  my  boat  was  finished  —  and  it  was  a  very 
simple  affair  —  I  was  eager  as  a  boy  to  be  off;  I 
feared  the  river  would  all  run  by  before  I  could  wet 
her  bottom  in  it.  This  enthusiasm  begat  great 
expectations  of  the  trip.  I  should  surely  surprise 
Nature  and  win  some  new  secrets  from  her.  I 
should  glide  down  noiselessly  upon  her  and  see 
what  all  those  willow  screens  and  baffling  curves 
concealed.  As  a  fisherman  and  pedestrian  I  had 
been  able  to  come  at  the  stream  only  at  certain 
points:  now  the  most  private  and  secluded  retreats 
of  the  nymph  would  be  opened  to  me ;  every  bend 
and  eddy,  every  cove  hedged  in  by  swamps  or  pas- 
sage walled  in  by  high  alders,  would  be  at  the  beck 
of  my  paddle. 

Whom  shall  one  take  with  him  when  he  goes 
a-courting  Nature  1  This  is  always  a  vital  question. 
There  are  persons  who  will  stand  between  you  and 
that  which  you  seek:  they  obtrude  themselves; 
they  monopolize  your  attention;  they  blunt  your 
sense  of  the  shy,  half-revealed  intelligences  about 
you.  I  want  for  companion  a  dog  or  a  boy,  or  a 
person  who  has  the  virtues  of  dogs  and  boys,  — 
transparency,  good-nature,  curiosity,  open  sense, 
and  a  nameless  quality  that  is  akin  to  trees  and 
growths  and  the  inarticulate  forces  of  nature.  With 
him  you  are  alone,  and  yet  have  company ;  you  are 
free;  you  feel  no  disturbing  element;  the  influences 
of  nature  stream  through  him  and  around  him;  he 
is  a  good  conductor  of  the  subtle  fluid.  The  qual- 
ity or  qualification  I  refer  to  belongs  to  most  per- 


A   SUMMER    VOYAGE  3 

sons  who  spend  their  lives  in  the  open  air,  —  to 
soldiers,  hunters,  fishers,  laborers,  and  to  artists 
and  poets  of  the  right  sort.  How  full  of  it,  to 
choose  an  illustrious  example,  was  such  a  man  as 
Walter  Scott! 

But  no  such  person  came  in  answer  to  my  prayer, 
so  I  set  out  alone. 

It  was  fit  that  I  put  my  boat  into  the  water  at 
Arkville,  but  it  may  seem  a  little  incongruous  that 
I  should  launch  her  into  Dry  Brook ;  yet  Dry  Brook 
is  here  a  fine  large  trout  stream,  and  I  soon  found 
its  waters  were  wet  enough  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses. The  Delaware  is  only  one  mile  distant,  and 
I  chose  this  as  the  easiest  road  from  the  station 
to  it.  A  young  farmer  helped  me  carry  the  boat  to 
the  water,  but  did  not  stay  to  see  me  off;  only 
some  calves  feeding  alongshore  witnessed  my  em- 
barkation. It  would  have  been  a  godsend  to  boys, 
but  there  were  no  boys  about.  I  stuck  on  a  rift 
before  I  had  gone  ten  yards,  and  saw  with  misgiv- 
ing the  paint  transferred  from  the  bottom  of  my 
little  scow  to  the  tops  of  the  stones  thus  early  in 
the  journey.  But  I  was  soon  making  fair  headway, 
and  taking  trout  for  my  dinner  as  I  floated  along. 
My  first  mishap  was  when  I  broke  the  second  joint 
of  my  rod  on  a  bass,  and  the  first  serious  impedi- 
ment to  my  progress  was  when  I  encountered  the 
trunk  of  a  prostrate  elm  bridging  the  stream  within 
a  few  inches  of  the  surface.  My  rod  mended  and 
the  elm  cleared,  I  anticipated  better  sailing  when 
I  should  reach  the  Delaware  itself;  but  I  found  on 


4  PEPACTOfl 

this  day  and  on  subsequent  days  that  the  Delaware 
has  a  way  of  dividing  up  that  is  very  embarrassing 
to  the  navigator.  It  is  a  stream  of  many  minds: 
its  waters  cannot  long  agree  to  go  all  in  the  same 
channel,  and  whichever  branch  I  took  I  was  pretty 
sure  to  wish  I  had  taken  one  of  the  others.  I  was 
constantly  sticking  on  rifts,  where  I  would  have  to 
dismount,  or  running  full  tilt  into  willow  banks, 
where  I  would  lose  my  hat  or  endanger  my  fishing- 
tackle.  On  the  whole,  the  result  of  my  first  day's 
voyaging  was  not  encouraging.  I  made  barely  eight 
miles,  and  my  ardor  was  a  good  deal  dampened,  to 
say  nothing  about  my  clothing.  In  mid-afternoon 
I  went  to  a  well-to-do-looking  farmhouse  and  got 
some  milk,  which  I  am  certain  the  thrifty  housewife 
skimmed,  for  its  blueness  infected  my  spirits,  and 
I  went  into  camp  that  night  more  than  half  per- 
ided  to  abandon  the  enterprise  in  the  morning. 
The  loneliness  of  the  river,  too,  unlike  that  of  the 
fields  and  woods,  to  which  I  was  more  accustomed, 
oppressed  me.  In  the  woods,  things  are  close  to 
you,  and  you  touch  them  and  seem  to  interchange 
something  with  them;  but  upon  the  river,  even 
though  it  be  a  narrow  and  shallow  one  like  this, 
you  are  more  isolated,  farther  removed  from  the 
soil  and  its  attractions,  and  an  easier  prey  to  the 
unsocial  demons.  The  long,  unpeopled  vistas 
ahead;  the  still,  dark  eddies;  the  endless  monotone 
and  soliloquy  of  the  stream;  the  unheeding  rocks 
basking  like  monsters  along  the  shore,  half  out  of 
the  water,  half  in ;  a  solitary  heron  starting  up  here 


A   SUMMER   VOYAGE 

and  there,  as  you  rounded  some  point,  and  napping 
disconsolately  ahead  till  lost  to  view,  or  standing 
like  a  gaunt  spectre  on  the  umbrageous  side  of  the 
mountain,  his  motionless  form  revealed  against  the 
dark  green  as  you  passed;  the  trees  and  willows 
and  alders  that  hemmed  you  in  on  either  side,  and 
hid  the  fields  and  the  farmhouses  and  the  road  that 
ran  near  by,  —  these  things  and  others  aided  the 
skimmed  milk  to  cast  a  gloom  over  my  spirits  that 
argued  ill  for  the  success  of  my  undertaking.  Those 
rubber  boots,  too,  that  parboiled  my  feet  and  were 
clogs  of  lead  about  them,  —  whose  spirits  are  elastic 
enough  to  endure  them  1  A  malediction  upon  the 
head  of  him  who  invented  them!  Take  your  old 
shoes,  that  will  let  the  water  in  and  let  it  out  again, 
rather  than  stand  knee-deep  all  day  in  these  extin- 
guishers. 

I  escaped  from  the  river,  that  first  night,  and 
took  to  the  woods,  and  profited  by  the  change.  In 
the  woods  I  was  at  home  again,  and  the  bed  of 
hemlock  boughs  salved  my  spirits.  A  cold  spring 
run  came  down  off  the  mountain,  and  beside  it, 
underneath  birches  and  helmocks,  I  improvised  my 
hearthstone.  In  sleeping  on  the  ground  it  is  a 
great  advantage  to  have  a  back-log;  it  braces  and 
supports  you,  and  it  is  a  bedfellow  that  will  not 
grumble  when,  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  you 
crowd  sharply  up  against  it.  It  serves  to  keep  in 
the  warmth,  also.  A  heavy  stone  or  other  point  de 
resistance  at  your  feet  is  also  a  help.  Or,  better 
still,    scoop   out   a  little   place  in  the  earth,    a  iVw 


6  PEPACTON 

inches  deep,  so  as  to  admit  your  body  from  your 
hips  to  your  shoulders;  you  thus  get  an  equal  bear- 
ing the  whole  length  of  you.  I  am  told  the  West- 
ern hunters  and  guides  do  this.  On  the  same  prin- 
ciple, the  sand  makes  a  good  bed,  and  the  snow. 
You  make  a  mould  in  which  you  fit  nicely.  My 
berth  that  night  was  between  two  logs  that  the 
barkpeelers  had  stripped  ten  or  more  years  before. 
As  they  had  left  the  bark  there,  and  as  hemlock 
bark  makes  excellent  fuel,  I  had  more  reasons  than 
one  to  be  grateful  to  them. 

In  the  morning  I  felt  much  refreshed,  and  as  if 
the  night  had  tided  me  over  the  bar  that  threatened 
to  stay  my  progress.  If  I  can  steer  clear  of  skimmed 
milk,  I  said,  I  shall  now  finish  the  voyage  of  fifty 
miles  to  Hancock  with  increasing  pleasure. 

When  one  breaks  camp  in  the  morning,  he  turns 
back  again  and  again  to  see  what  he  has  left. 
Surely  he  feels  he  has  forgotten  something;  what  is 
it?  But  it  is  only  his  own  sad  thoughts  and  mus- 
ings he  has  left,  the  fragment  of  his  life  he  has 
lived  there.  Where  he  hung  his  coat  on  the  tree, 
where  he  slept  on  the  boughs,  where  he  made  his 
coffee  or  broiled  his  trout  over  the  coals,  where  he 
drank  again  and  again  at  the  little  brown  pool  in 
the  spring  run,  where  he  looked  long  and  long  up 
into  the  whispering  branches  overhead,  he  has  left 
what  he  cannot  bring  away  with  him,  —  the  flame 
and  the  ashes  of  himself. 

Of  certain  game-birds  it  is  thought  that  at  times 
they  have  the  power  of  withholding  their  scent;  no 


A   SUMMER   VOYAGE  7 

hint  or  particle  of  themselves  goes  out  upon  the  air. 
I  think  there  are  persons  whose  spiritual  pores  are 
always  sealed  up,  and  I  presume  they  have  the  best 
time  of  it.  Their  hearts  never  radiate  into  the 
void;  they  do  not  yearn  and  sympathize  without 
return;  they  do  not  leave  themselves  by  the  way- 
side as  the  sheep  leaves  her  wool  upon  the  brambles 
and  thorns. 

This  branch  of  the  Delaware,  so  far  as  I  could 
learn,  had  never  before  been  descended  by  a  white 
man  in  a  boat.  Rafts  of  pine  and  hemlock  timber 
are  run  down  on  the  spring  and  fall  freshets,  but  of 
pleasure-seekers  in  boats  I  appeared  to  be  the  first. 
Hence  my  advent  was  a  surprise  to  most  creatures 
in  the  water  and  out.  I  surprised  the  cattle  in  the 
field,  and  those  ruminating  leg-deep  in  the  water 
turned  their  heads  at  my  approach,  swallowed  their 
unfinished  cuds,  and  scampered  off  as  if  they  had 
seen  a  spectre.  I  surprised  the  fish  on  their  spawn- 
ing beds  and  feeding  grounds;  they  scattered,  as 
my  shadow  glided  down  upon  them,  like  chickens 
when  a  hawk  appears.  I  surprised  an  ancient  fish- 
erman seated  on  a  spit  of  gravelly  beach,  with  his 
back  up  stream,  and  leisurely  angling  in  a  deep, 
still  eddy,  and  mumbling  to  himself.  As  I  slid 
into  the  circle  of  his  vision  his  grip  on  his  pole 
relaxed,  his  jaw  dropped,  and  he  was  too  bewil- 
dered to  reply  to  my  salutation  for  some  moments. 
As  I  turned  a  bend  in  the  river  I  looked  back,  and 
saw  him  hastening  away  with  great  precipitation. 
T  presume  he  had  angled  there  for  forty  years  with- 


8  PEPACTON 

out  having  his  privacy  thus  intruded  upon.  I 
surprised  hawks  and  herons  and  kingfishers.  I 
came  suddenly  upon  muskrats,  and  raced  with  them 
down  the  rifts,  they  having  no  time  to  take  to  their 
holes.  At  one  point,  as  I  rounded  an  elbow  in  the 
stream,  a  black  eagle  sprang  from  the  top  of  a  dead 
tree,  and  flapped  hurriedly  away.  A  kingbird  gave 
chase,  and  disappeared  for  some  moments  in  the 
gulf  between  the  great  wings  of  the  eagle,  and  I 
imagined  him  seated  upon  his  back  delivering  his 
puny  blows  upon  the  royal  bird.  I  interrupted 
two  or  three  minks  fishing  and  hunting  alongshore. 
They  would  dart  under  the  bank  when  they  saw 
me,  then  presently  thrust  out  their  sharp,  weasel- 
like noses,  to  see  if  the  danger  was  imminent.  At 
one  point,  in  a  little  cove  behind  the  willows,  I 
surprised  some  schoolgirls,  with  skirts  amazingly 
abbreviated,  wading  and  playing  in  the  water. 
And  as  much  surprised  as  any,  I  am  sure,  was  that 
hard-worked-looking  housewife,  when  I  came  up 
from  under  the  bank  in  front  of  her  house,  and 
with  pail  in  hand  appeared  at  her  door  and  asked 
for  milk,  taking  the  precaution  to  intimate  that  I 
had  no  objection  to  the  yellow  scum  that  is  supposed 
to  rise  on  a  fresh  article  of  that  kind. 
"What  kind  of  milk  do  you  want? " 
"The  best  you  have.  Give  me  two  quarts  of 
it,"  I  replied. 

"What  do  you  want  to  do  with  it?'  with  an 
anxious  tone,  as  if  I  might  want  to  blow  up  some- 
thing or  burn  her  barns  with  it. 


A   SUMMER   VOYAGE  9 

"Oh,  drink  it,"  I  answered,  as  if  I  frequently 
put  milk  to  that  use. 

"  Well,  I  suppose  I  can  get  you  some ; "  and  she 
presently  reappeared  with  swimming  pail,  with  those 
little  yellow  flakes  floating  about  upon  it  that  one 
likes  to  see. 

I  passed  several  low  dams  the  second  day,  but 
had  no  trouble.  I  dismounted  and  stood  upon  the 
apron,  and  the  boat,  with  plenty  of  line,  came  over 
as  lightly  as  a  chip,  and  swung  around  in  the  eddy 
below  like  a  steed  that  knows  its  master.  In  the 
afternoon,  while  slowly  drifting  down  a  long  eddy, 
the  moist  southwest  wind  brought  me  the  welcome 
odor  of  strawberries,  and  running  ashore  by  a 
meadow,  a  short  distance  below,  I  was  soon  parting 
the  daisies  and  filling  my  cup  with  the  dead-ripe 
fruit.  Berries,  be  they  red,  blue,  or  black,  seem 
like  a  special  providence  to  the  camper-out;  they 
are  luxuries  he  has  not  counted  on,  and  I  prized 
these  accordingly.  Later  in  the  day  it  threatened 
rain,  and  I  drew  up  to  shore  under  the  shelter  of 
some  thick  overhanging  hemlocks,  and  proceeded  to 
eat  my  berries  and  milk,  glad  of  an  excuse  not  to 
delay  my  lunch  longer.  While  tarrying  here  I 
heard  young  voices  up  stream,  and  looking  in  that 
direction  saw  two  boys  coming  down  the  rapids  on 
rude  floats.  They  were  racing  along  at  a  lively 
pace,  each  with  a  pole  in  his  hand,  dexterously 
avoiding  the  rocks  and  the  breakers,  and  schooling 
themselves  thus  early  in  the  duties  and  perils  of  the 
raftsmen.  As  they  saw  me  one  observed  to  the 
other,  — 


10  PEPACTON 

"There  is  the  man  we  saw  go  by  when  we  were 
building  our  floats.  If  we  had  known  he  was  com- 
ing so  far,  maybe  we  could  have  got  him  to  give 
us  a  ride." 

They  drew  near,  guided  their  crafts  to  shore 
beside  me,  and  tied  up,  their  poles  answering  for 
hawsers.  They  proved  to  be  Johnny  and  Denny 
Dwire,  aged  ten  and  twelve.  They  were  friendly 
boys,  and  though  not  a  bit  bashful  were  not  a  bit 
impertinent.  And  Johnny,  who  did  the  most  of 
the  talking,  had  such  a  sweet,  musical  voice;  it  was 
like  a  bird's.  It  seems  Denny  had  run  away,  a  day 
or  two  before,  to  his  uncle's,  five  miles  above,  and 
Johnny  had  been  after  him,  and  was  bringing  his 
prisoner  home  on  a  float;  and  it  was  hard  to  tell 
which  was  enjoying  the  fun  most,  the  captor  or  the 
captured. 

"Why  did  you  run  away  1 "  said  I  to  Denny. 

"Oh,  'cause,"  replied  he,  with  an  air  which  said 
plainly,  "The  reasons  are  too  numerous  to  mention." 

"Boys,  you  know,  will  do  so,  sometimes,"  said 
Johnny,  and  he  smiled  upon  his  brother  in  a  way 
that  made  me  think  they  had  a  very  good  under- 
standing upon  the  subject. 

They  could  both  swim,  yet  their  floats  looked 
very  perilous,  —  three  pieces  of  old  plank  or  slabs, 
with  two  cross-pieces  and  a  fragment  of  a  board  for 
a  rider,  and  made  without  nails  or  withes. 

"In  some  places,  "  said  Johnny,  "one  plank  was 
here  and  another  off  there,  but  we  managed,  some- 
how, to  keep  atop  of  them." 


A    SUMMER   VOYAGE  11 

"Let's  leave  our  floats  here,  and  ride  with  him 
the  rest  of  the  way,"  said  one  to  the  other. 

"All  right;  may  we,  mister?" 

I  assented,  and  we  were  soon  afloat  again.  How 
they  enjoyed  the  passage;  how  smooth  it  was;  how 
the  boat  glided  along;  how  quickly  she  felt  the 
paddle !  They  admired  her  much ;  they  praised  my 
steersmanship ;  they  praised  my  fish-pole  and  all 
my  fixings  down  to  my  hateful  rubber  boots.  AYhen 
we  stuck  on  the  rifts,  as  we  did  several  times,  they 
leaped  out  quickly,  with  their  bare  feet  and  legs, 
and  pushed  us  off. 

"I  think,"  said  Johnny,  "if  you  keep  her  straight 
and  let  her  have  her  own  way,  she  will  find  the 
deepest  water.      Don't  you,  Denny?" 

"I  think  she  will,"  replied  Denny;  and  I  found 
the  boys  were  pretty  nearly  right. 

I  tried  them  on  a  point  of  natural  history.  I  had 
observed,  coming  along,  a  great  many  dead  eels 
lying  on  the  bottom  of  the  river,  that  I  supposed 
had  died  from  spear  wounds.  "No,"  said  Johnny, 
"they  are  lamper-eels.  They  die  as  soon  as  they 
have  built  their  nests  and  laid  their  eggs. " 

"Are  you  sure?  " 

"That 's  what  they  all  say,  and  I  know  they  are 
lampers. " 

So  I  fished  one  up  out  of  the  deep  water  with 
my  paddle-blade  and  examined  it;  and  sure  enough 
it  was  a  lamprey.  There  was  the  row  of  holes 
along  its  head,  and  its  ugly  suction  mouth.  I  had 
noticed  their  nests,  too,  all  along,  where  the  water 


12  PEPACTON 

in  the  pools  shallowed  to  a  few  feet  and  began  to 
hurry  toward  the  rifts:  they  were  low  mounds  of 
small  stones,  as  if  a  bushel  or  more  of  large  pebbles 
had  been  dumped  upon  the  river  bottom;  occasion- 
ally they  were  so  near  the  surface  as  to  make  a  big 
ripple.  The  eel  attaches  itself  to  the  stones  by  its 
mouth,  and  thus  moves  them  at  will.  An  old  fish- 
erman told  me  that  a  strong  man  could  not  pull  a 
large  lamprey  loose  from  a  rock  to  which  it  had 
attached  itself.  It  fastens  to  its  prey  in  this  way, 
and  sucks  the  life  out.  A  friend  of  mine  says  he 
once  saw  in  the  St.  Lawrence  a  pike  as  long  as  his 
arm  with  a  lamprey  eel  attached  to  him.  The  fish 
was  nearly  dead  and  was  quite  white,  the  eel  had 
so  sucked  out  his  blood  and  substance.  The  fish, 
when  seized,  darts  against  rocks  and  stones,  and 
tries  in  vain  to  rub  the  eel  off,  then  succumbs  to 
the  sucker. 

"The  lampers  do  not  all  die,"  said  Denny,  "be- 
cause they  do  not  all  spawn ; "  and  I  observed  that 
the  dead  ones  were  all  of  one  size  and  doubtless 
of  the  same  age. 

The  lamprey  is  the  octopus,  the  devil-fish,  of  these 
waters,  and  there  is,  perhaps,  no  tragedy  enacted 
here  that  equals  that  of  one  of  these  vampires  slowly 
sucking  the  life  out  of  a  bass  or  a  trout. 

My  boys  went  to  school  part  of  the  time.  Did 
they  have  a  good  teacher? 

"Good  enough  for  me,"  said  Johnny. 

"  Good  enough  for  me, "  echoed  Denny. 

Just   below   Bark-a-boom  —  the    name    is   worth 


A   SUMMER   VOYAGE  13 

keeping  —  they  left  me.  I  was  loath  to  part  with 
them;  their  musical  voices  and  their  thorough  good- 
fellowship  had  been  very  acceptable.  With  a  little 
persuasion,  I  think  they  would  have  left  their  home 
and  humble  fortunes,  and  gone  a-roving  with  me. 

About  four  o'clock  the  warm,  vapor-laden  south- 
west wind  brought  forth  the  expected  thunder- 
shower.  I  saw  the  storm  rapidly  developing  behind 
the  mountains  in  my  front.  Presently  I  came  in 
sight  of  a  long  covered  wooden  bridge  that  spanned 
the  river  about  a  mile  ahead,  and  I  put  my  paddle 
into  the  water  with  all  my  force  to  reach  this  cover 
before  the  storm.  It  was  neck  and  neck  most  of 
the  way.      The  storm  had  the  wind,  and  I  had  it 

—  in  my  teeth.      The  bridge  was   at  Shavertown, 

and  it  was  by  a  close  shave  that  I  got  under  it 

before  the  rain  was  upon  me.      How  it  poured  and 

rattled  and  whipped  in  around  the  abutment  of  the 

bridge  to  reach  me!     I   looked   out  well  satisfied 

upon  the  foaming  water,  upon  the-  wet,  unpainted 

houses  and  barns  of  the  Shavertowners,  and  upon 

the  trees, 

"  Caught  and  cuffed  by  the  gale." 

Another  traveler  —  the  spotted-winged  nighthawk 

—  was  also  roughly  used  by  the  storm.  He  faced 
it  bravely,  and  beat  and  beat,  but  was  unable  to 
stem  it,  or  even  hold  his  own;  gradually  he  drifted 
back,  till  he  was  lost  to  sight  in  the  wet  obscurity. 
The  water  in  the  river  rose  an  inch  while  I  waited, 
about  three  quarters  of  an  hour.  Only  one  man, 
I  reckon,  saw  me  in  Shavertown,  and  he  came  and 


1 4  PEPACTON 

gossiped  with  me  from  the  bank  above  when  the 
storm  had  abated. 

The  second  night  I  stopped  at  the  sign  of  the 
elm-tree.  The  woods  were  too  wet,  and  I  con- 
cluded to  make  my  boat  my  bed.  A  superb  elm, 
on  a  smooth  grassy  plain  a  few  feet  from  the  water's 
edge,  looked  hospitable  in  the  twilight,  and  I  drew 
my  boat  up  beneath  it.  I  hung  my  clothes  on  the 
jagged  edges  of  its  rough  bark,  and  went  to  bed 
with  the  moon,  "in  her  third  quarter,"  peeping 
under  the  branches  upon  me.  I  had  been  reading 
Stevenson's  amusing  "Travels  with  a  Donkey,"  and 
the  lines  he  pretends  to  quote  from  an  old  play  kept 
running  in  my  head :  — 

"  The  bed  was  made,  the  room  was  fit, 
By  punctual  eve  the  stars  were  lit; 
The  air  was  sweet,  the  water  ran ; 
No  need  was  there  for  maid  or  man, 
When  we  put  up,  my  ass  and  I, 
At  God's  green  caravanserai." 

But  the  stately  elm  played  me  a  trick :  it  slyly  and 
at  long  intervals  let  great  drops  of  water  down  upon 
me,  now  with  a  sharp  smack  upon  my  rubber  coat; 
then  with  a  heavy  thud  upon  the  seat  in  the  bow  or 
stern  of  my  boat ;  then  plump  into  my  upturned  ear, 
or  upon  my  uncovered  arm,  or  with  a  ring  into  my 
tin  cup,  or  with  a  splash  into  my  coffee-pail  that 
stood  at  my  side  full  of  water  from  a  spring  I  had 
just  passed.  After  two  hours'  trial  I  found  drop- 
ping off  to  sleep,  under  such  circumstances,  was  out 
of  the  question;  so  I  sprang  up,  in  no  very  amiable 
mood  toward  my  host,  and  drew  my  boat  clean  from 


A    SUMMER    VOYAGE  l.j 

under  the  elm.  I  had  refreshing  slumber  thence- 
forth, and  the  birds  were  astir  in  the  morning  long 
before  I  was. 

There  is  one  way,  at  least,  in  which  the  denud- 
ing the  country  of  its  forests  has  lessened  the  rain- 
fall: in  certain  conditions  of  the  atmosphere  every 
tree  is  a  great  condenser  of  moisture,  as  I  had  just 
observed  in  the  case  of  the  old  elm;  little  showers 
are  generated  in  their  branches,  and  in  the  aggre- 
gate the  amount  of  water  precipitated  in  this  way 
is  considerable.  Of  a  foggy  summer  morning  one 
may  see  little  puddles  of  water  standing  on  the 
stones  beneath  maple-trees,  along  the  street;  and 
in  winter,  when  there  is  a  sudden  change  from  cold 
to  warm,  with  fog,  the  water  fairly  runs  down  the 
trunks  of  the  trees,  and  .streams  from  their  naked 
branches.  The  temperature  of  the  tree  is  so  much 
below  that  of  the  atmosphere  in  such  cases  that  the 
condensation  is  very  rapid.  In  lieu  of  these  arboreal 
rains  we  have  the  dew  upon  the  grass,  but  it  is 
doubtful  if  the  grass  ever  drips  as  does  a  tree. 

The  birds,  I  say,  were  astir  in  the  morning  before 
I  was,  and  some  of  them  were  more  wakeful  through 
the  night,  unless  they  sing  in  their  dreams.  At 
this  season  one  may  hear  at  intervals  numerous  bird 
voices  during  the  night.  The  whip-poor-will  was 
piping  when  I  lay  down,  and  I  still  heard  one  when 
I  woke  up  after  midnight.  I  heard  the  song  spar- 
row and  the  kingbird  also,  like  watchers  calling  the 
hour,  and  several  times  I  heard  the  cuckoo.  In- 
deed, I  am  convinced  that  our  cuckoo  is  to  a  con- 


16  PEPACTON 

siderable  extent  a  night  bird,  and  that  he  moves 
about  freely  from  tree  to  tree.  His  peculiar  gut- 
tural note,  now  here,  now  there,  may  be  heard 
almost  any  summer  night,  in  any  part  of  the  coun- 
try, and  occasionally  his  better  known  cuckoo  call. 
He  is  a  great  recluse  by  day,  but  seems  to  wander 
abroad  freely  by  night. 

The  birds  do  indeed  begin  with  the  day.  The 
farmer  who  is  in  the  field  at  work  while  he  can  yet 
see  stars  catches  their  first  matin  hymns.  In  the 
longest  June  days  the  robin  strikes  up  about  half 
past  three  o'clock,  and  is  quickly  followed  by  the 
song  sparrow,  the  oriole,  the  catbird,  the  wren,  the 
wood  thrush,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  tuneful  choir. 
Along  the  Potomac  I  have  heard  the  Virginia  car- 
dinal whistle  so  loudly  and  persistently  in  the  tree- 
tops  above,  that  sleeping  after  four  o'clock  was  out 
of  the  question.  Just  before  the  sun  is  up,  there 
is  a  marked  lull,  during  which,  I  imagine,  the  birds 
are  at  breakfast.  While  building  their  nest,  it  is 
very  early  in  the  morning  that  they  put  in  their  big 
strokes;  the  back  of  their  day's  work  is  broken 
before  you  have  begun  yours. 

A  lady  once  asked  me  if  there  was  any  individ- 
uality among  the  birds,  or  if  those  of  the  same  kind 
were  as  near  alike  as  two  peas.  I  was  obliged  to 
answer  that  to  the  eye  those  of  the  same  species 
were  as  near  alike  as  two  peas,  but  that  in  their 
songs  there  were  often  marks  of  originality.  Caged 
or  domesticated  birds  develop  notes  and  traits  of 
their  own,  and  among  the  more  familiar  orchard  and 


A   SUMMER   VOYAGE  17 

garden  birds  one  may  notice  the  same  tendency.  I 
observe  a  great  variety  of  songs,  and  even  qualitii  - 
of  voice,  among  the  orioles  and  among  the  song 
sparrows.  On  this  trip  my  ear  was  especially 
attracted  to  some  striking  and  original  sparrow 
songs.  At  one  point  I  was  half  afraid  I  had  let 
pass  an  opportunity  to  identify  a  new  warbler,  but 
finally  concluded  it  was  a  song  sparrow.  On  an- 
other occasion  I  used  to  hear  day  after  day  a  spar- 
row that  appeared  to  have  some  organic  defect  in 
its  voice :  part  of  its  song  was  scarcely  above  a  whis- 
per, as  if  the  bird  was  suffering  from  a  very  bad 
cold.  I  have  heard  a  bobolink  and  a  hermit  thrush 
with  similar  defects  of  voice.  I  have  heard  a  robin 
with  a  part  of  the  whistle  of  the  quail  in  his  song. 
It  was  out  of  time  and  out  of  tune,  but  the  robin 
seemed  insensible  of  the  incongruity,  and  sang  as 
loudly  and  as  joyously  as  any  of  his  mates.  A  cat- 
bird will  sometimes  show  a  special  genius  for  mim- 
icry, and  I  have  known  one  to  suggest  very  plainly 
some  notes  of  the  bobolink. 

There  are  numerous  long  covered  bridges  span- 
ning the  Delaware,  and  under  some  of  these  I  saw 
the  cliff  swallow  at  home,  the  nests  being  fastened 
to  the  under  sides  of  the  timbers,  —  as  it  were,  sus- 
pended from  the  ceiling  instead  of  being  planted 
upon  the  shelving  or  perpendicular  side,  as  is  usual 
with  them.  To  have  laid  the  foundation,  indeed, 
to  have  sprung  the  vault  downward  and  finished  it 
successfully,  must  have  required  special  engineering 
skill.      I  had  never  before  seen  or  heard  of  these 


18  PEPACTON 

nests  being  so  placed.  But  birds  are  quick  to  adjust 
their  needs  to  the  exigencies  of  any  case.  Not  long 
before,  I  had  seen  in  a  deserted  house,  on  the  head 
of  the  Rondout,  the  chimney  swallows  entering  the 
chamber  through  a  stove-pipe  hole  in  the  roof,  and 
gluing  their  nests  to  the  sides  of  the  rafters,  like 
the  barn  swallows. 

I  was  now,  on  the  third  day,  well  down  in  the 
wilds  of  Colchester,  with  a  current  that  made 
between  two  and  three  miles  an  hour,  —  just  a  sum- 
mer idler's  pace.  The  atmosphere  of  the  river  had 
improved  much  since  the  first  day,  —  was,  indeed, 
without  taint,  — and  the  water  was  sweet  and  good. 
There  were  farmhouses  at  intervals  of  a  mile  or  so; 
but  the  amount  of  tillable  land  in  the  river  valley 
or  on  the  adjacent  mountains  was  very  small. 
Occasionally  there  would  be  forty  or  fifty  acres  of 
flat,  usually  in  grass  or  corn,  with  a  thrifty  looking 
farmhouse.  One  could  see  how  surely  the  land 
made  the  house  and  its  surrounding;  good  land 
bearing  good  buildings,  and  poor  land  poor. 

In  mid-forenoon  I  reached  the  long  placid  eddy 
at  Downsville,  and  here  again  fell  in  with  two  boys. 
They  were  out  paddling  about  in  a  boat  when  I 
drew  near,  and  they  evidently  regarded  me  in  the 
light  of  a  rare  prize  which  fortune  had  wafted  them. 

"Ain't  you  glad  we  come,  Benny?  "  I  heard  one 
of  them  observe  to  the  other,  as  they  were  conduct- 
ing me  to  the  best  place  to  land.  They  were  bright, 
good  boys,  off  the  same  piece  as  my  acquaintances  of 
the  day  before,  and  about  the  same  ages,  —  differ- 


A   SUMMER    VOYAGE  ]'.i 

ing  only  in  being  village  boys.      With  what  curios- 
ity they  looked  me  over!     Where  had  I  come  from  ; 
where  was  I  going;  how  long  had  I  been  on  the 
way;   who   built   my   boat;   was   I   a  carpenter,   to 
build  such  a  neat  craft,  etc.  ?     They  never  had  seen 
such  a  traveler  before.      Had  I  had  no   mishaps? 
And  then  they   bethought  them   of  the  dangerous 
passes  that  awaited  me,  and  in  good  faith  began  to 
warn  and  advise  me.      They  had  heard  the  tales  of 
raftsmen,    and  had   conceived  a   vivid   idea  of   the 
perils  of  the  river  below,  gauging  their  notions  of 
it  from  the  spring  and  fall  freshets  tossing  about 
the  heavy  and  cumbrous  rafts.      There  was  a  whirl- 
pool, a  rock  eddy,  and  a  binocle  within  a  mile.     1 
might  be  caught  in  the  binocle,  or  engulfed  in  the 
whirlpool,  or  smashed  up  in  the  eddy.      But  I  felt 
much  reassured  when  they  told  me  I  had  already 
passed  several  whirlpools  and  rock  eddies ;  but  that 
terrible    binocle,  —  what   was   that  ?     I   had   never 
heard  of  such  a  monster.      Oh,  it  was  a  still,  miry 
place  at  the  head  of  a  big  eddy.     The  current  might 
carry  me  up  there,  but  I  could  easily  get  out  again ; 
the  rafts  did.      But  there  was  another  place  I  must 
beware  of,  where  two  eddies  faced  each  other ;  rafts- 
men were   sometimes  swept  off    there  by  the  oars 
and  drowned.      And  when  I   came   to   rock  eddy, 
which   I   would   know,    because   the    river   divided 
there   (a  part  of  the  water  being  afraid  to  risk  the 
eddy,  I  suppose),  I  must  go  ashore  and  survey  the 
pass;  but  in  any  case  it  would  be  prudent  to  keep 
to  the  left.      I  might  stick  on  the  rift,  but  that  was 


20  PEPACTON 

nothing  to  being  wrecked  upon  those  rocks.  The 
boys  were  quite  in  earnest,  and  I  told  them  I  would 
walk  up  to  the  village  and  post  some  letters  to  my 
friends  before  I  braved  all  these  dangers.  So  they 
marched  me  up  the  street,  pointing  out  to  their 
chums  what  they  had  found. 

"Going  way  to  Phil —  What  place  is  that  near 
where  the  river  goes  into  the  sea  1 " 

"Philadelphia?" 

"Yes;  thinks  he  may  go  way  there.  Won't  he 
have  fun  1  " 

The  boys  escorted  me  about  the  town,  then  back 
to  the  river,  and  got  in  their  boat  and  came  down 
to  the  bend,  where  they  could  see  me  go  through 
the  whirlpool  and  pass  the  binocle  (I  am  not  sure 
about  the  orthography  of  the  word,  but  I  suppose 
it  means  a  double,  or  a  sort  of  mock  eddy).  I 
looked  back  as  I  shot  over  the  rough  current  beside 
a  gentle  vortex,  and  saw  them  watching  me  with 
great  interest.  Rock  eddy,  also,  was  quite  harm- 
less, and  I  passed  it  without  any  preliminary  sur- 
vey. 

I  nooned  at  Sodom,  and  found  good  milk  in  a 
humble  cottage.  In  the  afternoon  I  was  amused  by 
a  great  blue  heron  that  kept  flying  up  in  advance 
of  me.  Every  mile  or  so,  as  I  rounded  some  point, 
I  would  come  unexpectedly  upon  him,  till  finally 
he  grew  disgusted  with  my  silent  pursuit,  and  took 
a  long  turn  to  the  left  up  along  the  side  of  the 
mountain,  and  passed  back  up  the  river,  uttering  a 
hoarse,  low  note. 


A   SUMMER    VOYAGE  21 

The  wind  still  boded  rain,  and  about  four  o'clock, 
announced   by  deep- toned   thunder   and   portentous 
clouds,  it  began  to  charge  down  the  mountain-side 
in  front  of  me.      I  ran  ashore,   covered  my  traps, 
and  took  my  way  up  through  an  orchard  to  a  quaint 
little  farmhouse.      But  there  was  not  a  soul  about, 
outside  or  in,    that  I  could  find,   though  the  door 
was  unfastened;  so  I  went  into  an  open  shed  with 
the  hens,  and  lounged  upon  some  straw,  while  the 
unloosed    floods   came   down.      It   was   better   than 
boating  or  fishing.      Indeed,  there  are  few  summer 
pleasures  to  be  placed  before  that  of  reclining  at 
ease   directly   under   a   sloping    roof,    after    toil    or 
travel  in  the  hot  sun,  and  looking  out  into  the  rain- 
drenched    air    and    fields.      It   is  such  a   vital  yet 
soothing  spectacle.      We  sympathize  with  the  earth. 
We  know  how  good  a  bath  is,  and  the  unspeakable 
deliciousness  of  water  to  a  parched   tongue.      The 
office  of  the  sunshine  is  slow,  subtle,  occult,  unsus- 
pected;   but  when   the   clouds   do   their   work   the 
benefaction  is  so  palpable  and  copious,  so  direct  and 
wholesale,  that  all  creatures  take  note  of  it,  and  for 
the  most  part  rejoice  in  it.      It  is  a  completion,  a 
consummation,  a  paying  of  a  debt  with  a  royal  hand ; 
the  measure  is  heaped  and  overflowing.      It  was  the 
simple  vapor  of  water  that  the  clouds  borrowed  of 
the  earth;   now  they   pay  back  more  than   water: 
the  drops  are  charged  with  electricity  and  with  the 
gases   of   the   air,    and   have    new   solvent    i cowers. 
Then,    how   the  slate   is  sponged  off,    and   left   all 
clean  and  new  again! 


22  PEPACTON 

In  the  shed  where  I  was  sheltered  were  many 
relics  and  odds  and  ends  of  the  farm.  In  juxtapo- 
sition with  two  of  the  most  stalwart  wagon  or  truck- 
wheels  I  ever  looked  upon,  was  a  cradle  of  ancient 
and  peculiar  make,  —  an  aristocratic  cradle,  with 
high-turned  posts  and  an  elaborately  carved  and 
moulded  body,  that  was  suspended  upon  rods  and 
swung  from  the  top.  How  I  should  have  liked  to 
hear  its  history  and  the  story  of  the  lives  it  had 
rocked,  as  the  rain  sang  and  the  boughs  tossed 
without!  Above  it  was  the  cradle  of  a  phcebe-bird 
saddled  upon  a  stick  that  ran  behind  the  rafter;  its 
occupants  had  not  flown,  and  its  story  was  easy  to 
read. 

Soon  after  the  first  shock  of  the  storm  was  over, 
and  before  I  could  see  breaking  sky,  the  birds 
tuned  up  with  new  ardor,  —  the  robin,  the  indigo- 
bird,  the  purple  finch,  the  song  sparrow,  and  in  the 
meadow  below  the  bobolink.  The  cockerel  near 
me  followed  suit,  and  repeated  his  refrain  till  my 
meditations  were  so  disturbed  that  I  was  compelled 
to  eject  him  from  the  cover,  albeit  he  had  the  best 
right  there.  But  he  crowed  his  defiance  with  droop- 
ing tail  from  the  yard  in  front.  I,  too,  had  men- 
tally crowed  over  the  good  fortune  of  the  shower  ; 
but  before  I  closed  my  eyes  that  night  my  crest  was 
a  good  deal  fallen,  and  I  could  have  wished  the 
friendly  elements  had  not  squared  their  accounts 
quite  so  readily  and  uproariously. 

The  one  shower  did  not  exhaust  the  supply  a  bit ; 
Nature's  hand  was  full  of  trumps  yet, — yea,  and 


A   SUMMER    VOYAGE  23 

her  sleeve  too.  I  stopped  at  a  trout  brook,  which 
came  down  out  of  the  mountains  on  the  right,  and 
took  a  few  trout  for  my  supper;  but  its  current  was 
too  roily  from  the  shower  for  fly-fishing.  Another 
farmhouse  attracted  me,  but  there  was  no  one  at 
home;  so  I  picked  a  quart  of  strawberries  in  the 
meadow  in  front,  not  minding  the  wet  grass,  and 
about  six  o'clock,  thinking  another  storm  that  had 
been  threatening  on  my  right  had  miscarried,  I 
pushed  off,  and  went  floating  down  into  the  deep- 
ening gloom  of  the  river  valley.  The  mountains, 
densely  wooded  from  base  to  summit,  shut  in  the 
view  on  every  hand.  They  cut  in  from  the  right 
and  from  the  left,  one  ahead  of  the  other,  matching 
like  the  teeth  of  an  enormous  trap;  the  river  was 
caught  and  bent,  but  not  long  detained,  by  them. 
Presently  I  saw  the  rain  creeping  slowly  over  them 
in  my  rear,  for  the  wind  had  changed;  but  I  appre- 
hended nothing  but  a  moderate  sundown  drizzle, 
such  as  we  often  get  from  the  tail  end  of  a  shower, 
and  drew  up  in  the  eddy  of  a  big  rock  under  an 
overhanging  tree  till  it  should  have  passed.  But 
it  did  not  pass;  it  thickened  and  deepened,  and 
reached  a  steady  pour  by  the  time  I  had  calculated 
the  sun  would  be  gilding  the  mountain-tops.  I 
had  wrapped  my  rubber  coat  about  my  blankets  and 
groceries,  and  bared  my  back  to  the  storm.  In 
sullen  silence  I  saw  the  night  settling  down  and  the 
rain  increasing;  my  roof- tree  gave  way,  and  every 
leaf  poured  its  accumulated  drops  upon  me.  There 
were  streams  and  splashes  where  before  there  had 


% 


24  PEPACTON 

been  little  more  than  a  mist.  I  was  getting  well 
soaked  and  uncomplimentary  in  my  remarks  on  the 
weather.  A  saucy  catbird,  near  by,  flirted  and 
squealed  very  plainly,  "There!  there!  What  did 
I  tell  you!  what  did  I  tell  you!  Pretty  pickle! 
pretty  pickle !  pretty  pickle  to  be  in !  "  But  I  had 
been  in  worse  pickles,  though  if  the  water  had  been 
salt  my  pickling  had  been  pretty  thorough.  Seeing 
the  wind  was  in  the  northeast,  and  that  the  weather 
had  fairly  stolen  a  march  on  me,  I  let  go  my  hold 
of  the  tree,  and  paddled  rapidly  to  the  opposite 
shore,  which  was  low  and  pebbly,  drew  my  boat 
up  on  a  little  peninsula,  turned  her  over  upon  a 
spot  which  I  cleared  of  its  coarser  stone,  propped 
up  one  end  with  the  seat,  and  crept  beneath.  I 
would  now  test  the  virtues  of  my  craft  as  a  roof, 
and  I  found  she  was  without  flaw,  though  she  was 
pretty  narrow.  The  tension  of  her  timber  was  such 
that  the  rain  upon  her  bottom  made  a  low,  musical 
hum. 

Crouched  on  my  blankets  and  boughs,  — for  I 
had  gathered  a  good  supply  of  the  latter  before  the 
rain  overtook  me,  —  and  dry  only  about  my  middle, 
I  placidly  took  life  as  it  came.  A  great  blue  heron 
flew  by,  and  let  off  something  like  ironical  horse 
laughter.  Before  it  became  dark  I  proceeded  to  eat 
my  supper,  —  my  berries,  but  not  my  trout.  What 
a  fuss  we  make  about  the  "hulls"  upon  strawber- 
ries !  We  are  hypercritical ;  we  may  yet  be  glad  to 
dine  off  the  hulls  alone.  Some  people  see  some- 
thing to  pick  and  carp  at  in  every  good  that  comes 


A   SUMMER   VOYAGE  25 

to  them;  I  was  thankful  that  I  had  the  berries,  and 
resolutely  ignored  their  little  scalloped  ruffles,  which 
I  found  pleased  the  eye  and  did  not  disturb  the  palate. 
When  bedtime  arrived,  I  found  undressing  a  lit- 
tle awkward,  my  berth  was  so  low ;  there  was  plenty 
of  room  in  the  aisle,  and  the  other  passengers  were 
nowhere  to  be  seen,  but  I  did  not  venture  out.  It 
rained  nearly  all  night,  but  the  train  made  good 
speed,  and  reached  the  land  of  daybreak  nearly  on 
time.  The  water  in  the  river  had  crept  up  during 
the  night  to  within  a  few  inches  of  my  boat,  but  I 
rolled  over  and  took  another  nap,  all  the  same. 
Then  I  arose,  had  a  delicious  bath  in  the  sweet, 
swift-running  current,  and  turned  my  thoughts 
toward  breakfast.  The  making  of  the  coffee  was 
the  only  serious  problem.  With  everything  soaked 
and  a  fine  rain  still  falling,  how  shall  one  build  a 
fire?  I  made  my  way  to  a  little  island  above  in 
quest  of  driftwood.  Before  I  had  found  the  wood 
I  chanced  upon  another  patch  of  delicious  wild 
strawberries,  and  took  an  appetizer  of  them  out  of 
hand.  Presently  I  picked  up  a  yellow  birch  stick 
the  size  of  my  arm.  The  wood  was  decayed,  but 
the  bark  was  perfect.  I  broke  it  in  two,  punched 
out  the  rotten  wood,  and  had  the  bark  intact.  The 
fatty  or  resinous  substance  in  this  bark  preserves  it, 
and  makes  it  excellent  kindling.  With  some  sea- 
soned twigs  and  a  scrap  of  paper  I  soon  had  a  fire 
going  that  answered  my  every  purpose.  More  ber- 
ries were  picked  while  the  coffee  was  brewing,  and 
the  breakfast  was  a  success. 


26  PEPACTON 

The  camper-out  often  finds  himself  in  what  seems 
a  distressing  predicament  to  people  seated  in  their 
snug,  well-ordered  houses;  but  there  is  often  a  real 

satisfaction  when  things  come  to  their  worst, a 

satisfaction  in  seeing  what  a  small  matter  it  is,  after 
all;  that  one  is  really  neither  sugar  nor  salt,  to  be 
afraid  of  the  wet;  and  that  life  is  just  as  well  worth 
living  beneath  a  scow  or  a  dug-out  as  beneath  the 
highest  and  broadest  roof  in  Christendom. 

By  ten  o'clock  it  became  necessary  to  move,  on 
account  of  the  rise  of  the  water,  and  as  the  rain  had 
abated  I  picked  up  and  continued  my  journey. 
Before  long,  however,  the  rain  increased  again,  and 
I  took  refuge  in  a  barn.  The  snug,  tree-embowered 
farmhouse  looked  very  inviting,  just  across  the  road 
from  the  barn;  but  as  no  one  was  about,  and  no 
faces  appeared  at  the  window  that  I  might  judge  of 
the  inmates,  I  contented  myself  with  the  hospital- 
ity the  barn  offered,  filling  my  pockets  with  some 
dry  birch  shavings  I  found  there  where  the  farmer 
had  made  an  ox-yoke,  against  the  needs  of  the  next 
kindling. 

After  an  hour's  detention  I  was  off  again.  I 
stopped  at  Baxter's  Brook,  which  flows  hard  by  the 
classic  hamlet  of  Harvard,  and  tried  for  trout,  but 
with  poor  success,  as  I  did  not  think  it  worth  while 
to  go  far  up  stream. 

At  several  points  I  saw  rafts  of  hemlock  lumber 
tied  to  the  shore,  ready  to  take  advantage  of  the 
first  freshet.  Kafting  is  an  important  industry  for 
a  hundred  miles  or  more  along  the  Delaware.      The 


A   SUMMER   VOYAGE  27 

lumbermen  sometimes  take  their  families  or  friends, 
and  have  a  jollification  all  the  way  to  Trenton  or  to 
Philadelphia.  In  some  places  the  speed  is  very- 
great,  almost  equaling  that  of  an  express  train. 
The  passage  of  such  places  as  Cochecton  Falls  and 
"Foul  Kift"  is  attended  with  no  little  danger. 
The  raft  is  guided  by  two  immense  oars,  one  before 
and  one  behind.  I  frequently  saw  these  huge  im- 
plements in  the  driftwood  alongshore,  suggesting 
some  colossal  race  of  men.  The  raftsmen  have 
names  of  their  own.  From  the  upper  Delaware, 
where  I  had  set  in,  small  rafts  are  run  down  which 
they  call  "colts."  They  come  frisking  down  at  a 
lively  pace.  At  Hancock  they  usually  couple  two 
rafts  together,  when  I  suppose  they  have  a  span  of 
colts ;  or  do  two  colts  make  one  horse  ?  Some  parts 
of  the  framework  of  the  raft  they  call  "grubs;" 
much  depends  upon  these  grubs.  The  lumbermen 
were  and  are  a  hardy,  virile  race.  The  Hon.  Charles 
Knapp,  of  Deposit,  now  eighty-three  years  of  age, 
but  with  the  look  and  step  of  a  man  of  sixty,  told 
me  he  had  stood  nearly  all  one  December  day  in  the 
water  to  his  waist,  reconstructing  his  raft,  which  had 
gone  to  pieces  on  the  head  of  an  island.  Mr.  Knapp 
had  passed  the  first  half  of  his  life  in  Colchester  and 
Hancock,  and,  although  no  sportsman,  had  once  taken 
part  in  a  great  bear  hunt  there.  The  bear  was  an 
enormous  one,  and  was  hard  pressed  by  a  gang  of 
men  and  dogs.  Their  muskets  and  assaults  upon 
the  beast  with  clubs  had  made  no  impression.  Mr. 
Knapp    saw  where    the    bear  was  coming,  and    he 


28  PEPACTON 

thought  he  would  show  them  how  easy  it  was  to 
dispatch  a  bear  with  a  club,  if  you  only  knew  where 
to  strike.  He  had  seen  how  quickly  the  largest  hog 
would  wilt  beneath  a  slight  blow  across  the  "small 
of  the  back."  So,  armed  with  an  immense  hand- 
spike, he  took  up  a  position  by  a  large  rock  that  the 
bear  must  pass.  On  she  came,  panting  and  nearly 
exhausted,  and  at  the  right  moment  down  came  the 
club  with  great  force  upon  the  small  of  her  back. 
"If  a  fly  had  alighted  upon  her,"  said  Mr.  Knapp, 
"I  think  she  would  have  paid  just  as  much  attention 
to  it  as  she  did  to  me." 

Early  in  the  afternoon  I  encountered  another 
boy,  Henry  Ingersoll,  who  was  so  surprised  by  my 
sudden  and  unwonted  appearance  that  he  did  not 
know  east  from  west.  "Which  way  is  west?"  I 
inquired,  to  see  if  my  own  head  was  straight  on  the 
subject. 

"That  way,"  he  said,  indicating  east  within  a 
few  degrees. 

"You  are  wrong,"  I  replied.  "Where  does  the 
sun  rise  ?  " 

"There,"  he  said,  pointing  almost  in  the  direc- 
tion he  had  pointed  before. 

"But  does  not  the  sun  rise  in  the  east  here  as 
well  as  elsewhere?  "  I  rejoined. 

"Well,  they  call  that  west,  anyhow." 

But  Henry's  needle  was  subjected  to  a  disturbing 
influence  just  then.  His  house  was  near  the  river, 
and  he  was  its  sole  guardian  and  keeper  for  the 
time;  his  father  had  gone  up  to  the  next  neighbor's 


A   SUMMER    VOYAGE  29 

(it  was  Sunday),  and  his  sister  had  gone  with  the 
schoolmistress  down  the  road  to  get  "black  birch. 
He  came  out  in  the  road,  with  wide  eyes,  to  view 
me  as  I  passed,  when  I  drew  rein,  and  demanded 
the  points  of  the  compass,  as  above.  Then  I  shook 
my  sooty  pail  at  him  and  asked  for  milk.  Yes,  I 
could  have  some  milk,  but  I  would  have  to  wait  till 
his  sister  came  back;  after  he  had  recovered  a  little, 
he  concluded  he  could  get  it.  He  came  for  my 
pail,  and  then  his  boyish  curiosity  appeared.  My 
story  interested  him  immensely.  He  had  seen 
twelve  summers,  but  he  had  only  been  four  miles 
from  home  up  and  down  the  river:  he  had  been 
down  to  the  East  Branch,  and  he  had  been  up  to 
Trout  Brook.  He  took  a  pecuniary  interest  in  me. 
What  did  my  pole  cost?  What  my  rubber  coat, 
and  what  my  revolver  ?  The  latter  he  must  take  in 
his  hand;  he  had  never  seen  such  a  thing  to  shoot 
with  before  in  his  life,  etc.  He  thought  I  might 
make  the  trip  cheaper  and  easier  by  stage  and  by 
the  cars.  He  went  to  school:  there  were  six  schol- 
ars in  summer,  one  or  two  more  in  winter.  The 
population  is  not  crowded  in  the  town  of  Hancock, 
certainly,  and  never  will  be.  The  people  live  close 
to  the  bone,  as  Thoreau  would  say,  or  rather  close 
to  the  stump.  Many  years  ago  the  young  men 
there  resolved  upon  having  a  ball.  They  concluded 
not  to  go  to  a  hotel,  on  account  of  the  expense,  and 
so  chose  a  private  house.  There  was  a  man  in  the 
neighborhood  who  could  play  the  fife;  he  olfered  to 
furnish  the  music  for   seventy-five  cents.      But  this 


30  PEPACTON 

was  deemed  too  much,  so  one  of  the  party  agreed  to 
whistle.  History  does  not  tell  how  many  beaux 
there  were  bent  upon  this  reckless  enterprise,  but 
there  were  three  girls.  For  refreshments  they 
bought  a  couple  of  gallons  of  whiskey  and  a  few 
pounds  of  sugar.  When  the  spree  was  over,  and 
the  expenses  were  reckoned  up,  there  was  a  shilling 
—  a  York  shilling  —  apiece  to  pay.  Some  of  the 
revelers  were  dissatisfied  with  this  charge,  and  inti- 
mated that  the  managers  had  not  counted  themselves 
in,  but  taxed  the  whole  expense  upon  the  rest  of 
the  party. 

As  I  moved  on  I  saw  Henry's  sister  and  the 
schoolmistress  picking  their  way  along  the  muddy 
road  near  the  river's  bank.  One  of  them  saw  me, 
and,  dropping  her  skirts,  said  to  the  other  (I  could 
read  the  motions),  "See  that  man!"  The  other 
lowered  her  flounces,  and  looked  up  and  down  the 
road,  then  glanced  over  into  the  field,  and  lastly 
out  upon  the  river.  They  paused  and  had  a  good 
look  at  me,  though  I  could  see  that  their  impulse  to 
run  away,  like  that  of  a  frightened  deer,  was  strong. 

At  the  East  Branch  the  Big  Beaver  Kill  joins 
the  Delaware,  almost  doubling  its  volume.  Here  I 
struck  the  railroad,  the  forlorn  Midland,  and  here 
another  set  of  men  and  manners  cropped  out,  — 
what  may  be  called  the  railroad  conglomerate  over- 
lying this  mountain  freestone. 

"Where  did  you  steal  that  boat?"  and  "What 
you  running  away  for  ? "  greeted  me  from  a  hand- 
car that  went  by. 


A   SUMMER   VOYAGE  31 

I  paused  for  some  time  and  watched  the  fish 
hawks,  or  ospreys,  of  which  there  were  nearly  a 
dozen  sailing  about  above  the  junction  of  the  two 
streams,  squealing  and  diving,  and  occasionally 
striking  a  fish  on  the  rifts.  I  am  convinced  that 
the  fish  hawk  sometimes  feeds  on  the  wing.  I  saw 
him  do  it  on  this  and  on  another  occasion.  He 
raises  himself  by  a  peculiar  motion,  and  brings  his 
head  and  his  talons  together,  and  apparently  takes 
a  bite  of  a  fish.  While  doing  this  his  flight  pre- 
1  sents  a  sharply  undulating  line ;  at  the  crest  of  each 
rise  the  morsel  is  taken. 

In  a  long,  deep  eddy  under  the  west  shore  I 
came  upon  a  brood  of  wild  ducks,  the  hooded  mer- 
ganser. The  young  were  about  half  grown,  but  of 
course  entirely  destitute  of  plumage.  They  started 
off  at  great  speed,  kicking  the  water  into  foam 
behind  them,  the  mother  duck  keeping  upon  their 
flank  and  rear.  Near  the  outlet  of  the  pool  I  saw 
them  go  ashore,  and  I  expected  they  would  conceal 
themselves  in  the  woods;  but  as  I  drew  near  the 
place  they  came  out,  and  I  saw  by  their  motions 
they  were  going  to  make  a  rush  by  me  up  stream. 
At  a  signal  from  the  old  one,  on  they  came,  and 
passed  within  a  few  feet  of  me.  It  was  almost 
incredible,  the  speed  they  made.  Their  pink  feet 
were  like  swiftly  revolving  wheels  placed  a  little  to 
the  rear;  their  breasts  just  skimmed  the  surface, 
and  the  water  was  beaten  into  spray  behind  them. 
They  had  no  need  of  wings;  even  the  mother  bird 
did  not  use  hers;  a  steamboat  could   hardly  have 


32  PEPACTON 

kept  up  with  them,  I  dropped  my  paddle  and 
cheered.  They  kept  the  race  up  for  a  long  dis- 
tance, and  I  saw  them  making  a  fresh  spirt  as  I 
entered  upon  the  rift  and  dropped  quickly  out  of 
sight.  I  next  disturbed  an  eagle  in  his  meditations 
upon  a  dead  treetop,  and  a  cat  sprang  out  of  some 
weeds  near  the  foot  of  the  tree.  Was  he  watching 
for  puss,  while  she  was  watching  for  some  smaller 
prey? 

I  passed  Partridge  Island  —  which  is  or  used  to 
be  the  name  of  a  post-office  —  unwittingly,  and 
encamped  for  the  night  on  an  island  near  Hawk's 
Point.  I  slept  in  my  boat  on  the  beach,  and  in 
the  morning  my  locks  were  literally  wet  with  the 
dews  of  the  night,  and  my  blankets  too ;  so  I  waited 
for  the  sun  to  dry  them.  As  I  was  gathering  drift- 
wood for  a  fire,  a  voice  came  over  from  the  shadows 
of  the  east  shore :  "  Seems  to  me  you  lay  abed  pretty 
late ! " 

"I  call  this  early,"  I  rejoined,  glancing  at  the 
sun. 

"Wall,  it  may  be  airly  in  the  forenoon,  but  it 
ain't  very  airly  in  the  mornin' ; "  a  distinction  I 
was  forced  to  admit.  Before  I  had  reembarked 
some  cows  came  down  to  the  shore,  and  I  watched 
them  ford  the  river  to  the  island.  They  did  it 
with  great  ease  and  precision.  I  was  told  they  will 
sometimes,  during  high  water,  swim  over  to  the 
islands,  striking  in  well  up  stream,  and  swimming 
diagonally  across.  At  one  point  some  cattle  had 
crossed  the  river,  and  evidently  got  into  mischief, 


A    SUMMER    VOYAGE  33 

for  a  large  dog  rushed  them  down  the  bank  into  the 
current,  and  worried  them  all  the  way  over,  part 
of  the  time  swimming  and  part  of  the  time  leaping 
very  high,  as  a  dog  will  in  deep  snow,  coming  down 
with  a  great  splash.  The  cattle  were  shrouded  with 
spray  as  they  ran,  and  altogether  it  was  a  novel 
picture. 

My  voyage  ended  that  forenoon  at  Hancock,  and 
was  crowned  by  a  few  idyllic  days  with  some  friends 
in  their  cottage  in  the  woods  by  Lake  Oquaga,  a 
body  of  crystal  water  on  the  hills  near  Deposit,  and 
a  haven  as  peaceful  and  perfect  as  voyager  ever 
came  to  port  in. 


n 

SPRINGS 
I  '11  show  thee  the  best  springs.  —  Tempest. 

AMAIN"  who  came  back  to  the  place  of  his  birth 
in  the  East,  after  an  absence  of  a  quarter  of 
a  century  in  the  West,  said  the  one  thing  he  most 
desired  to  see  about  the  old  homestead  was  the 
spring.  This,  at  least,  he  would  find  unchanged. 
Here  his  lost  youth  would  come  back  to  him.  The 
faces  of  his  father  and  mother  he  might  not  look 
upon;  but  the  face  of  the  spring,  that  had  mirrored 
theirs  and  his  own  so  oft,  he  fondly  imagined  would 
beam  on  him  as  of  old.  I  can  well  believe  that,  in 
that  all  but  springless  country  in  which  he  had  cast 
his  lot,  the  vision,  the  remembrance,  of  the  fountain 
that  flowed  by  his  father's  doorway,  so  prodigal  of 
its  precious  gifts,  has  awakened  in  him  the  keenest 
longings  and  regrets. 

Did  he  not  remember  the  path,  also  ?  for  next  to 
the  spring  itself  is  the  path  that  leads  to  it.  In- 
deed, of  all  foot  paths,  the  spring  path  is  the  most 
suggestive. 

This  is  a  path  with  something  at  the  end  of  it, 
and  the  best  of  good  fortune  awaits  him  who  walks 
therein.      It  is  a  well-worn  path,  and,  though  gen- 


36  PEPACTON 

erally  up  or  down  a  hill,  it  is  the  easiest  of  all  paths 
to  travel:  we  forget  our  fatigue  when  going  to  the 
spring,  and  we  have  lost  it  when  we  turn  to  come 
away.  See  with  what  alacrity  the  laborer  hastens 
along  it,  all  sweaty  from  the  fields;  see  the  boy  or 
girl  running  with  pitcher  or  pail;  see  the  welcome 
shade  of  the  spreading  tree  that  presides  over  its 
marvelous  birth! 

In  the  woods  or  on  the  mountain-side,  follow  the 
path  and  you  are  pretty  sure  to  find  a  spring;  all 
creatures  are  going  that  way  night  and  day,  and 
they  make  a  path. 

A  spring  is  always  a  vital  point  in  the  landscape; 
it  is  indeed  the  eye  of  the  fields,  and  how  often, 
too,  it  has  a  noble  eyebrow  in  the  shape  of  an  over- 
hanging bank  or  ledge !  Or  else  its  site  is  marked 
by  some  tree  which  the  pioneer  has  wisely  left 
standing,  and  which  sheds  a  coolness  and  freshness 
that  make  the  water  more  sweet.  In  the  shade  of 
this  tree  the  harvesters  sit  and  eat  their  lunch,  and 
look  out  upon  the  quivering  air  of  the  fields.  Here 
the  Sunday  saunterer  stops  and  lounges  with  his 
book,  and  bathes  his  hands  and  face  in  the  cool 
fountain.  Hither  the  strawberry-girl  comes  with 
her  basket  and  pauses  a  moment  in  the  green  shade. 
The  plowman  leaves  his  plow,  and  in  long  strides 
approaches  the  life-renewing  spot,  while  his  team, 
that  cannot  follow,  look  wistfully  after  him.  Here 
the  cattle  love  to  pass  the  heat  of  the  day,  and 
hither  come  the  birds  to  wash  themselves  and  make 
their  toilets. 


SPRINGS  37 

Indeed,  a  spring  is  always  an  oasis  in  the  desert 
of  the  fields.     It  is  a  creative  and  generative  centre. 
It  attracts  all  things   to   itself,  —  the  grasses,    the 
mosses,  the  flowers,  the  wild  plants,  the  great  trees. 
The  walker  finds  it  out,  the  camping  party  seek  it, 
the   pioneer   builds   his  hut  or  his  house  near  it. 
When    the    settler    or    squatter   has   found   a   good 
spring,  he  has  found  a  good  place  to  begin  life;  he 
has   found   the   fountain-head  of  much  that  he   is 
seeking  in  this  world.     The  chances  are  that  he  has 
found  a  southern  and  eastern  exposure,  for  it  is  a 
fact  that  water  does   not   readily  flow  north;    the 
valleys  mostly  open  the  other  way ;  and  it  is  quite 
certain   he   has   found  a   measure   of   salubrity,  for 
where  water  flows  fever  abideth  not.      The  spring, 
too,   keeps  him  to  the  right  belt,    out  of  the  low 
valley,  and  off  the  top  of  the  hill. 

When  John  Winthrop  decided  upon  the  site 
where  now  stands  the  city  of  Boston,  as  a  proper 
place  for  a  settlement,  he  was  chiefly  attracted  by 
a  large  and  excellent  spring  of  water  that  flowed 
there.      The  infant  city  was  born  of  this  fountain. 

There  seems  a  kind  of  perpetual  springtime  about 
the  place  where  water  issues  from  the  ground,  —  a 
freshness  and  a  greenness  that  are  ever  renewed. 
The  grass  never  fades,  the  ground  is  never  parched 
or  frozen.  There  is  warmth  there  in  winter  and 
coolness  in  summer.  The  temperature  is  equalized. 
In  March  or  April  the  spring  runs  are  a  bright 
emerald,  while  the  surrounding  fields  are  yet  brown 
and  sere,  and  in  fall  they  are  yet  green  when  the. 


38  PEPACTON 

first  snow  covers  them.  Thus  every  fountain  by 
the  roadside  is  a  fountain  of  youth  and  of  life. 
This  is  what  the  old  fables  finally  mean. 

An  intermittent  spring  is  shallow;  it  has  no  deep 
root,  and  is  like  an  inconstant  friend.  But  a  peren- 
nial spring,  one  whose  ways  are  appointed,  whose 
foundation  is  established,  what  a  profound  and  beau- 
tiful symbol!  In  fact,  there  is  no  more  large  and 
universal  symbol  in  nature  than  the  spring,  if  there 
is  any  other  capable  of  such  wide  and  various  appli- 
cations. 

What  preparation  seems  to  have  been  made  for 
it  in  the  conformation  of  the  ground,  even  in  the 
deep  underlying  geological  strata!  Vast  rocks  and 
ledges  are  piled  for  it,  or  cleft  asunder  that  it  may 
find  a  way.  Sometimes  it  is  a  trickling  thread  of 
silver  down  the  sides  of  a  seamed  and  scarred  preci- 
pice. Then  again  the  stratified  rock  is  like  a  just- 
lifted  lid,  from  beneath  which  the  water  issues. 
Or  it  slips  noiselessly  out  of  a  deep  dimple  in  the 
fields.  Occasionally  it  bubbles  up  in  the  valley, 
as  if  forced  up  by  the  surrounding  hills.  Many 
springs,  no  doubt,  find  an  outlet  in  the  beds  of  the 
large  rivers  and  lakes,  and  are  unknown  to  all  but 
the  fishes.  They  probably  find  them  out  and  make 
much  of  them.  The  trout  certainly  do.  Find  a 
place  in  the  creek  where  a  spring  issues,  or  where 
it  flows  into  it  from  a  near  bank,  and  you  have 
found  a  most  likely  place  for  trout.  They  deposit 
their  spawn  there  in  the  fall,  warm  their  noses  there 
in  winter,  and  cool  themselves  there  in  summer.      I 


SPRINGS  39 

have  seen  the  patriarchs  of  the  tribe  of  an  old  and 
much-fished  stream,  seven  or  eight  enormous  fel- 
lows, congregated  in  such  a  place.  The  boys  found 
it  out,  and  went  with  a  bag  and  bagged  them  all. 
In  another  place  a  trio  of  large  trout,  that  knew 
and  despised  all  the  arts  of  the  fishermen,  took  up 
their  abode  in  a  deep,  dark  hole  in  the  edge  of  the 
wood,  that  had  a  spring  flowing  into  a  shallow  part 
of  it.  In  midsummer  they  were  wont  to  come  out 
from  their  safe  retreat  and  bask  in  the  spring,  their 
immense  bodies  but  a  few  inches  under  water.  A 
youth,  who  had  many  times  vainly  sounded  their 
dark  hiding-place  with  his  hook,  happening  to  come 
along  with  his  rifle  one  day,  shot  the  three,  one 
after  another,  killing  them  by  the  concussion  of  the 
bullet  on  the  water  immediately  over  them. 

The  ocean  itself  is  known  to  possess  springs, 
copious  ones,  in  many  places  the  fresh  water  rising 
up  through  the  heavier  salt  as  through  a  rock,  and 
affording  supplies  to  vessels  at  the  surface.  Off  the 
coast  of  Florida  many  of  these  submarine  springs 
have  been  discovered,  the  outlet,  probably,  of  the 
streams  and  rivers  that  disappear  in  the  "sinks"  of 
that  State. 

It  is  a  pleasant  conception,  that  of  the  unscien- 
tific folk,  that  the  springs  are  fed  directly  by  the 
sea,  or  that  the  earth  is  full  of  veins  or  arteries 
that  connect  with  the  great  reservoir  of  waters. 
But  when  science  turns  the  conception  over  and 
makes  the  connection  in  the  air,  —  disclosing  the 
great  water-main  in  the  clouds,  and  that  the  mighty 


40  PEPACTON 

engine  of  the  hydraulic  system  of  nature  is  the  sun, 
—  the  fact  becomes  even  more  poetical,  does  it  not? 
This  is  one  of  the  many  cases  where  science,  instead 
of  curtailing  the  imagination,  makes  new  and  large 
demands  upon  it. 

The  hills  are  great  sponges  that  do  not  and  can- 
not hold  the  water  that  is  precipitated  upon  them, 
but  that  let  it  filter  through  at  the  bottom.  This 
is  the  way  the  sea  has  robbed  the  earth  of  its  vari- 
ous salts,  its  potash,  its  lime,  its  magnesia,  and 
many  other  mineral  elements.  It  is  found  that  the 
oldest  upheavals,  those  sections  of  the  country  that 
have  been  longest  exposed  to  the  leeching  and  wash- 
ing of  the  rains,  are  poorest  in  those  substances  that 
go  to  the  making  of  the  osseous  framework  of  man 
and  of  the  animals.  Wheat  does  not  grow  well 
there,  and  the  men  born  and  reared  there  are  apt  to 
have  brittle  bones.  An  important  part  of  those 
men  went  down  stream  ages  before  they  were  born. 
The  water  of  such  sections  is  now  soft  and  free  from 
mineral  substances,  but  not  more  wholesome  on  that 
account. 

The  gigantic  springs  of  the  country  that  have 
not  been  caught  in  any  of  the  great  natural  basins 
are  mostly  confined  to  the  limestone  region  of  the 
Middle  and  Southern  States,  —  the  valley  of  Vir- 
ginia and  its  continuation  and  deflections  into  Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee,  Northern  Alabama,  Georgia,  and 
Florida.  Through  this  belt  are  found  the  great 
caves  and  the  subterranean  rivers.  The  waters 
have  here  worked   like  enormous  moles,    and  have 


SPRINGS  41 

honeycombed  the  foundations  of  the  earth.  They 
have  great  highways  beneath  the  hills.  Water 
charged  with  carbonic  acid  gas  has  a  very  sharp 
tooth  and  a  powerful  digestion,  and  no  limestone 
rock  can  long  resist  it.  Sherman's  soldiers  tell  of 
a  monster  spring  in  Northern  Alabama,  —  a  river 
leaping  full-grown  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth; 
and  of  another  at  the  bottom  of  a  large,  deep  pit 
in  the  rocks,  that  continues  its  way  under  ground. 

There  are  many  springs  in  Florida  of  this  charac- 
ter, large  underground  streams  that  have  breathing 
holes,  as  it  were,  here  and  there.  In  some  places 
the  water  rises  and  fills  the  bottoms  of  deep  bowl- 
shaped  depressions;  in  other  localities  it  is  reached 
through  round  natural  well-holes;  a  bucket  is  let 
down  by  a  rope,  and  if  it  becomes  detached  is 
quickly  swept  away  by  the  current.  Some  of  the 
Florida  springs  are  perhaps  the  largest  in  the  world, 
affording  room  and  depth  enough  for  steamboats  to 
move  and  turn  in  them.  Green  Cove  Spring  is 
said  to  be  like  a  waterfall  reversed ;  a  cataract  rush- 
ing upward  through  a  transparent  liquid  instead  of 
leaping  downward  through  the  air.  There  are  one 
or  two  of  these  enormous  springs  also  in  Northern 
Mississippi,  —  springs  so  large  that  it  seems  as  if 
the  whole  continent  must  nurse  them. 

The  Valley  of  the  Shenandoah  is  remarkable  for 
its  large  springs.  The  town  of  Winchester,  a  town 
of  several  thousand  inhabitants,  is  abundantly  sup- 
plied with  water  from  a  single  spring  that  issues  on 
higher  ground  near  by.      Several  other  springs   in 


42  PEPACTON 

the  vicinity  afford  rare  mill-power.  At  Harrison- 
burg, a  county  town  farther  up  the  valley,  I  was 
attracted  by  a  low  ornamental  dome  resting  upon  a 
circle  of  columns,  on  the  edge  of  the  square  that 
contained  the  court-house,  and  was  surprised  to  find 
that  it  gave  shelter  to  an  immense  spring.  This 
spring  was  also  capable  of  watering  the  town  or 
several  towns;  stone  steps  lead  down  to  it  at  the 
bottom  of  a  large  stone  basin.  There  was  a  pretty 
constant  string  of  pails  to  and  from  it.  Aristotle 
called  certain  springs  of  his  country  "cements  of 
society,"  because  the  young  people  so  frequently 
met  there  and  sang  and  conversed ;  and  I  have  little 
doubt  this  spring  is  of  like  social  importance. 

There  is  a  famous  spring  at  San  Antonio,  Texas, 
which  is  described  by  that  excellent  traveler,  Fred- 
erick Law  Olmsted.  "The  whole  river,"  he  says, 
"gushes  up  in  one  sparkling  burst  from  the  earth, 
with  all  the  accessories  of  smaller  springs,  —  moss, 
pebbles,  foliage,  seclusion,  etc.  Its  effect  is  over- 
powering. It  is  beyond  your  possible  conception  of 
a  spring." 

Of  like  copiousness  and  splendor  is  the  Caledonia 
spring,  or  springs,  in  Western  New  York.  They 
give  birth  to  a  white-pebbled,  transparent  stream, 
several  rods  wide  and  two  or  three  feet  deep,  that 
flows  eighty  barrels  of  water  per  second,  and  is  alive 
with  trout.  The  trout  are  fat  and  gamy  even  in 
winter. 

The  largest  spring  in  England,  called  the  Well 
of  St.  Winifred,  at  Holywell,  flows  less  than  three 


SPRINGS  l:; 

barrels  per  second.  I  recently  went  many  miles  out 
of  my  way  to  see  the  famous  trout  spring  in  Warren 
County,  New  Jersey.  This  spring  flows  about  one 
thousand  gallons  of  water  per  minute,  which  has  a 
uniform  temperature  of  fifty  degrees  winter  and 
summer.  It  is  near  the  Musconetcong  Creek,  which 
looks  as  if  it  were  made  up  of  similar  springs.  On 
the  parched  and  sultry  summer  day  upon  which  my 
visit  fell,  it  was  well  worth  walking  many  miles 
just  to  see  such  a  volume  of  water  issue  from  the 
ground.  I  felt  with  the  boy  Petrarch,  when  he 
first  beheld  a  famous  spring,  that  "were  I  master 
of  such  a  fountain  I  would  prefer  it  to  the  finest  of 
cities."  A  large  oak  leans  down  over  the  spring 
and  affords  an  abundance  of  shade.  The  water  does 
not  bubble  up,  but  comes  straight  out  with  great 
speed,  like  a  courier  with  important  news,  and  as  if 
its  course  underground  had  been  a  direct  and  an 
easy  one  for  a  long  distance.  Springs  that  issue  in 
this  way  have  a  sort  of  vertebra,  a  ridgy  and  spine- 
like centre  that  suggests  the  gripe  and  push  there 
is  in  this  element. 

What  would  one  not  give  for  such  a  spring  in 
his  back  yard,  or  front  yard,  or  anywhere  near  his 
house,  or  in  any  of  his  fields'?  One  would  be 
tempted  to  move  his  house  to  it,  if  the  spring  could 
not  be  brought  to  the  house.  Its  mere  poetic  value 
and  suggestion  would  be  worth  all  the  art  and  orna- 
ment to  be  had.  It  would  irrigate  one's  heart  and 
character  as  well  as  his  acres.  Then  one  might  have 
a  Naiad  Queen  to  do  his  churning  and  to  saw  his 


44  PEPACTON 

wood;  then  one  might  "see  his  chore  done  by  the 
gods  themselves,"  as  Emerson  says,  or  by  the 
nymphs,  which  is  just  as  well. 

I  know  a  homestead,  situated  on  one  of  the  pic- 
turesque branch  valleys  of  the  Housatonic,  that  has 
such  a  spring  flowing  by  the   foundation  walls   of 
the  house,  and  not  a  little  of  the  strong  overmaster- 
ing local  attachment  that  holds  the  owner  there  is 
born  of  that,  his  native  spring.      He  could  not,  if 
he  would,  break  from  it.      He  says  that  when  he 
looks  down  into  it  he  has  a  feeling  that  he  is  an 
amphibious  animal  that  has  somehow  got  stranded. 
A  long,  gentle  flight  of  stone  steps  leads  from  the 
back  porch  down  to  it  under  the  branches  of  a  lofty 
elm.      It    wells    up    through    the   white    sand    and 
gravel  as  through  a  sieve,  and  fills  the  broad  space 
that  has  been  arranged  for  it  so  gently  and  imper- 
ceptibly that  one  does  not  suspect  its  copiousness 
until  he  has  seen  the  overflow.      It  turns  no  wheel, 
yet  it  lends  a  pliant  hand  to  many  of  the  affairs  of 
that  household.      It  is  a  refrigerator  in  summer  and 
a  frost-proof  envelope  in  winter,  and  a  fountain  of 
delights  the  year  round.      Trout  come  up  from  the 
Weebutook  Eiver  and  dwell  there  and  become  do- 
mesticated,   and   take  lumps   of    butter   from   your 
hand,  or  rake  the  ends  of  your  fingers  if  you  tempt 
them.      It  is  a  kind  of  sparkling  and  ever-washed 
larder.      Where  are  the  berries  ?  where  is  the  but- 
ter, the  milk,  the  steak,  the  melon  1     In  the  spring. 
It  preserves,  it  ventilates,  it  cleanses.      It  is  a  board 
of  health  and  general  purveyor.      It  is  equally  for 


SPRINGS  45 

use  and  for  pleasure.  Nothing  degrades  it,  and 
nothing  can  enhance  its  beauty.  It  is  picture  and 
parable,  and  an  instrument  of  music.  It  is  servant 
and  divinity  in  one.  The  milk  of  forty  cows  is 
cooled  in  it,  and  never  a  drop  gets  into  the  cans, 
though  they  are  plunged  to  the  brim.  It  is  as 
insensible  to  drought  and  rain  as  to  heat  and  cold. 
It  is  planted  upon  the  sand,  and  yet  it  abideth  like 
a  house  upon  a  rock.  It  evidently  has  some  rela- 
tion to  a  little  brook  that  flows  down  through  a 
deep  notch  in  the  hills  half  a  mile  distant,  because 
on  one  occasion,  when  the  brook  was  being  ditched 
or  dammed,  the  spring  showed  great  perturbation. 
Every  nymph  in  it  was  filled  with  sudden  alarm 
and  kicked  up  a  commotion. 

In  some  sections  of  the  country,  when  there  is 
no  spring  near  the  house,  the  farmer,  with  much 
labor  and  pains,  brings  one  from  some  uplying  field 
or  wood.  Pine  and  poplar  logs  are  bored  and  laid 
in  a  trench,  and  the  spring  practically  moved  to  the 
desired  spot.  The  ancient  Persians  had  a  law  that 
whoever  thus  conveyed  the  water  of  a  spring  to  a 
spot  not  watered  before  should  enjoy  many  immu- 
nities under  the  state  not  granted  to  others. 

Hilly  and  mountainous  countries  do  not  always 
abound  in  good  springs.  When  the  stratum  is  ver- 
tical, or  has  too  great  a  dip,  the  water  is  not  col- 
lected in  large  veins,  but  is  rather  held  as  it  falls 
and  oozes  out  slowly  at  the  surface  over  the  top  of 
the  rock.  On  this  account  one  of  the  most  famous 
grass  and  dairy  sections  of  New  York  is  poorly  sup- 


46  PEPACTON 

plied  with  springs.  Every  creek  starts  in  a  bog  or 
marsh,  and  good  water  can  be  had  only  by  excavat- 
ing. 

What  a  charm  lurks  about  those  springs  that  are 
found  near  the  tops  of  mountains,  so  small  that 
they  get  lost  amid  the  rocks  and  ddbris  and  never 
reach  the  valley,  and  so  cold  that  they  make  the 
throat  ache!  Every  hunter  and  mountain-climber 
can  tell  you  of  such,  usually  on  the  last  rise  before 
the  summit  is  cleared.  It  is  eminently  the  hunter's 
spring.  I  do  not  know  whether  or  not  the  foxes 
and  other  wild  creatures  lap  at  it,  but  their  pursuers 
are  quite  apt  to  pause  there  and  take  breath  or  eat 
their  lunch.  The  mountain-climbers  in  summer 
hail  it  with  a  shout.  It  is  always  a  surprise,  and 
raises  the  spirits  of  the  dullest.  Then  it  seems  to 
be  born  of  wildness  and  remoteness,  and  to  savor  of 
some  special  benefit  or  good  fortune.  A  spring  in 
the  valley  is  an  idyl,  but  a  spring  on  the  mountain 
is  a  genuine  lyrical  touch.  It  imparts  a  mild  thrill ; 
and  if  one  were  to  call  any  springs  "miracles,"  as 
the  natives  of  Cashmere  are  said  to  regard  their 
fountains,  it  would  be  such  as  these. 

What  secret  attraction  draws  one  in  his  summer 
walk  to  touch  at  all  the  springs  on  his  route,  and 
to  pause  a  moment  at  each,  as  if  what  he  was  in 
quest  of  would  be  likely  to  turn  up  there  ?  I  can 
seldom  pass  a  spring  without  doing  homage  to  it. 
It  is  the  shrine  at  which  I  oftenest  worship.  If  I 
find  one  fouled  with  leaves  or  trodden  full  by  cattle, 
I  take   as  much  pleasure  in  cleaning   it  out  as  a 


SPRINGS  47 

devotee  in  setting  up  the  broken  image  of  his  saint. 
Though  I  chance  not  to  want  to  drink  there,  I  like 
to  behold  a  clear  fountain,  and  I  may  want  to  drink 
next  time  I  pass,  or  some  traveler,  or  heifer,  or 
milch  cow  may.  Leaves  have  a  strange  fatality  for 
the  spring.  They  come  from  afar  to  get  into  it. 
In  a  grove  or  in  the  woods  they  drift  into  it  and 
cover  it  up  like  snow.  Late  in  November,  in  clear- 
ing one  out,  I  brought  forth  a  frog  from  his  hiber- 
nacle  in  the  leaves  at  the  bottom.  He  was  very 
black,  and  he  rushed  about  in  a  bewildered  manner 
like  one  suddenly  aroused  from  his  sleep. 

There  is  no  place  more  suitable  for  statuary  than 
about  a  spring  or  fountain,  especially  in  parks  or 
improved  fields.  Here  one  seems  to  expect  to  see 
figures  and  bending  forms.  "Where  a  spring  rises 
or  a  river  flows,"  says  Seneca,  "there  should  we 
build  altars  and  offer  sacrifices." 

I  have  spoken  of  the  hunter's  spring.  The  trav- 
eler's spring  is  a  little  cup  or  saucer-shaped  foun- 
tain set  in  the  bank  by  the  roadside.  The  har- 
vester's spring  is  beneath  a  wide-spreading  tree  in 
the  fields.  The  lover's  spring  is  down  a  lane  under 
a  hill.  There  is  a  good  screen  of  rocks  and  bushes. 
The  hermit's  spring  is  on  the  margin  of  a  lake  in 
the  woods.  The  fisherman's  spring  is  by  the  river. 
The  miner  finds  his  spring  in  the  bowels  of  the 
mountain.  The  soldier's  spring  is  wherever  he  can 
fill  his  canteen.  The  spring  where  schoolboys  go 
to  fill  the  pail  is  a  long  way  up  or  down  a  hill,  and 
has  just  been  roiled  by  a  frog  or  muskrat,  and  the 


48  PEPACTON 

boys  have  to  wait  till  it  settles.  There  is  yet  the 
milkman's  spring  that  never  dries,  the  water  of 
which  is  milky  and  opaque.  Sometimes  it  flows 
out  of  a  chalk  cliff.  This  last  is  a  hard  spring: 
all  the  others  are  soft. 

There  is  another  side  to  this  subject,  —  the  mar- 
velous, not  to  say  the  miraculous;  and  if  I  were  to 
advert  to  all  the  curious  or  infernal  springs  that  are 
described  by  travelers  or  others,  —  the  sulphur 
springs,  the  mud  springs,  the  sour  springs,  the  soap 
springs,  the  soda  springs,  the  blowing  springs,  the 
spouting  springs,  the  boiling  springs  not  one  mile 
from  Tophet,  the  springs  that  rise  and  fall  with  the 
tide;  the  spring  spoken  of  by  Vitruvius,  that  gave 
unwonted  loudness  to  the  voice;  the  spring  that 
Plutarch  tells  about,  that  had  something  of  the 
flavor  of  wine,  because  it  was  supposed  that  Bacchus 
had  been  washed  in  it  immediately  after  his  birth; 
the  spring  that  Herodotus  describes,  —  wise  man 
and  credulous  boy  that  he  was,  — called  the  "Foun- 
tain of  the  Sun,"  which  was  warm  at  dawn,  cold  at 
noon,  and  hot  at  midnight;  the  springs  at  San 
Filippo,  Italy,  that  have  built  up  a  calcareous  wall 
over  a  mile  long  and  several  hundred  feet  thick; 
the  renowned  springs  of  Cashmere,  that  are  believed 
by  the  people  to  be  the  source  of  the  comeliness  of 
their  women,  etc. ,  —  if  I  were  to  follow  up  my  sub- 
ject in  this  direction,  I  say,  it  would  lead  me  into 
deeper  and  more  troubled  waters  than  I  am  in  quest 
of  at  present. 

Pliny,  in  a  letter  to  one  of  his  friends,  gives  the 


SPRINGS  ::> 

following  account  of  a  spring  that  flowed  neai  his 
Laurentine  villa :  — 

"  There  is  a  spring  which  rises  in  a  neighboring 
mountain,  and  running  among  the  rocks  is  received 
into  a  little  banqueting-room,  artificially  formed  for 
that  purpose,  from  whence,  after  being  detained  a 
short  time,  it  falls  into  the  Larian  Lake.  The 
nature  of  this  spring  is  extremely  curious:  it  ebbs 
and  flows  regularly  three  times  a  day.  The  increase 
and  decrease  are  plainly  visible,  and  exceedingly 
interesting  to  observe.  You  sit  down  by  the  side 
of  the  fountain,  and  while  you  are  taking  a  repast 
and  drinking  its  water,  which  is  exceedingly  cool, 
you  see  it  gradually  rise  and  fall.  If  you  place  a 
ring  or  anything  else  at  the  bottom  when  it  is  dry, 
the  water  creeps  gradually  up,  first  gently  washing, 
finally  covering  it  entirely,  and  then,  little  by  little, 
subsides  again.  If  you  wait  long  enough,  you  may 
■  see  it  thus  alternately  advance  and  recede  three  suc- 
cessive times." 

Pliny  suggests  four  or  five  explanations  of  this 
phenomenon,  but  is  probably  wide  of  the  mark  in 
all  but  the  fourth  one :  — 

"Or  is  there  rather  a  certain  reservoir  that  con- 
tains these  waters  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  and, 
while  it  is  recruiting  its  discharges,  the  stream  in 
consequence  flows  more  slowly  and  in  less  quantity, 
but,  when  it  has  collected  its  due  measure,  runs  on 
again  in  its  usual  strength  and  fullness." 

There  are  several  of  these  intermitting  springs  in 


50  PEPACTOX 

different  parts  of  the  world,  and  they  are  perhaps 
all  to  be  explained  on  the  principle  of  the  siphon. 

In  the  Idyls  of  Theocritus  there  are  frequent 
allusions  to  springs.  It  was  at  a  spring  —  and  a 
mountain  spring  at  that  —  that  Castor  and  Pollux 
encountered  the  plug-ugly  Amycus :  — 

"And  spying  on  a  mountain  a  wild  wood  of  vast 
size,  they  found  under  a  smooth  cliff  an  ever-flow- 
ing spring,  filled  with  pure  water,  and  the  pebbles 
beneath  seemed  like  crystal  or  silver  from  the 
depths;  and  near  there  had  grown  tall  pines,  and 
poplars,  and  plane-trees,  and  cypresses  with  leafy 
tops,  and  fragrant  flowers,  pleasant  work  for  hairy 
bees,"  etc. 

Or  the  story  of  Hylas,  the  auburn-haired  boy, 
who  went  to  the  spring  to  fetch  water  for  supper 
for  Hercules  and  stanch  Telamon,  and  was  seized 
by  the  enamored  nymphs  and  drawn  in.  The  spring 
was  evidently  a  marsh  or  meadow  spring:  it  was  in 
a  "low-lying  spot,  and  around  it  grew  many  rushes, 
and  the  pale  blue  swallow-wort,  and  green  maiden- 
hair, and  blooming  parsley,  and  couch  grass  stretch- 
ing through  the  marshes. "  As  Hercules  was  tramp- 
ing through  the  bog,  club  in  hand,  and  shouting 
"Hylas!"  to  the  full  depth  of  his  throat,  he  heard 
a  thin  voice  come  from  the  water,  ■ — ■  it  was  Hvlas 
responding,  and  Hylas,  in  the  shape  of  the  little 
frog,  has  been  calling  from  our  marsh  springs  ever 
since. 

The  characteristic  flavor  and  suggestion  of  these 
Idyls  is  like  pure  spring-water.      This  is,  perhaps, 


SPRINGS  51 

why  the  modern  reader  is  apt  to  be  disappointed  in 
them  when  he  takes  them  up  for  the  first  time. 
They  appear  minor  and  literal  and  tasteless,  as  does 
most  ancient  poetry;  but  it  is  mainly  because  we 
have  got  to  the  fountain-head,  and  have  come  in 
contact  with  a  mind  that  has  been  but  little  shaped 
by  artificial  indoor  influences.  The  stream  of  liter- 
ature is  now  much  fuller  and  broader  than  it  was  in 
ancient  times,  with  currents  and  counter-currents, 
and  diverse  and  curious  phases ;  but  the  primitive 
sources  seem  far  behind  us,  and  for  the  refreshment 
of  simple  spring- water  in  art  we  must  still  go  back 
to  Greek  poetry. 


Ill 

AN   IDYL   OF   THE   HONEY-BEE 

rpHERE  is  no  creature  with  which  man  has  sur- 
-*-  rounded  himself  that  seems  so  much  like  a 
product  of  civilization,  so  much  like  the  result  of 
development  on  special  lines  and  in  special  fields, 
as  the  honey-bee.  Indeed,  a  colony  of  bees,  with 
their  neatness  and  love  of  order,  their  division  of 
labor,  their  public-spiritedness,  their  thrift,  their 
complex  economies,  and  their  inordinate  love  of 
gain,  seems  as  far  removed  from  a  condition  of  rude 
nature  as  does  a  walled  city  or  a  cathedral  town. 
Our  native  bee,  on  the  other  hand,  "the  burly, 
dozing  humblebee,"  affects  one  more  like  the  rude, 
untutored  savage.  He  has  learned  nothing  from 
experience.  He  lives  from  hand  to  mouth.  He 
luxuriates  in  time  of  plenty,  and  he  starves  in  times 
of  scarcity.  He  lives  in  a  rude  nest,  or  in  a  hole  in 
the  ground,  and  in  small  communities;  he  builds  a 
few  deep  cells  or  sacks  in  which  he  stores  a  little 
honey  and  bee-bread  for  his  young,  but  as  a  worker 
in  wax  he  is  of  the  most  primitive  and  awkward. 
The  Indian  regarded  the  honey-bee  as  an  ill-omen. 
She  was  the  white  man's  fly.  In  fact  she  was  the 
epitome  of  the  white  man   himself.      She  has  the 


54  PEPACTON 

white  man's  craftiness,  his  industry,  his  architectu- 
ral skill,  his  neatness  and  love  of  system,  his  fore- 
sight; and,  above  all,  his  eager,  miserly  habits. 
The  honey-bee's  great  ambition  is  to  be  rich,  to  lay 
up  great  stores,  to  possess  the  sweet  of  every  flower 
that  blooms.  She  is  more  than  provident.  Enough 
will  not  satisfy  her;  she  must  have  all  she  can  get 
by  hook  or  by  crook.  She  comes  from  the  oldest 
country,  Asia,  and  thrives  best  in  the  most  fertile 
and  long-settled  lands. 

Yet  the  fact  remains  that  the  honey-bee  is  essen- 
tially a  wild  creature,  and  never  has  been  and  can- 
not be  thoroughly  domesticated.  Its  proper  home 
is  the  woods,  and  thither  every  new  swarm  counts 
on  going;  and  thither  many  do  go  in  spite  of  the 
care  and  watchfulness  of  the  bee-keeper.  If  the 
woods  in  any  given  locality  are  deficient  in  trees 
with  suitable  cavities,  the  bees  resort  to  all  sorts  of 
makeshifts;  they  go  into  chimneys,  into  barns  and 
outhouses,  under  stones,  into  rocks,  and  so  forth. 
Several  chimneys  in  my  locality  with  disused  flues 
are  taken  possession  of  by  colonies  of  bees  nearly 
every  season.  One  day,  while  bee-hunting,  I  devel- 
oped a  line  that  went  toward  a  farmhouse  where  I 
had  reason  to  believe  no  bees  were  kept.  I  fol- 
lowed it  up  and  questioned  the  farmer  about  his 
bees.  He  said  he  kept  no  bees,  but  that  a  swarm 
had  taken  possession  of  his  chimney,  and  another 
had  gone  under  the  clapboards  in  the  gable  end  of 
his  house.  He  had  taken  a  large  lot  of  honey  out 
of  both  places  the  year    before.      Another    farmer 


AN   IDYL   OF   THE    HONEY-BEE 


.").") 


told  me  that  one  day  his  family  had  seen  a  number 
of  bees  examining  a  knothole  in  the  side  of  his 
house ;  the  next  day,  as  they  were  sitting  down  to 
dinner,  their  attention  was  attracted  by  a  loud 
humming  noise,  when  they  discovered  a  swarm  of 
bees  settling  upon  the  side  of  the  house  and  pour- 
ing into  the  knothole.  In  subsequent  years  other 
swarms  came  to  the  same  place. 

Apparently  every  swarm  of  bees,  before  it  leaves 
the  parent  hive,  sends  out  exploring  parties  to  look 
up  the  future  home.  The  woods  and  groves  are 
searched  through  and  through,  and  no  doubt  the 
privacy  of  many  a  squirrel  and  many  a  wood-mouse 
is  intruded  upon.  What  cozy  nooks  and  retreats 
they  do  spy  out,  so  much  more  attractive  than  the 
painted  hive  in  the  garden,  so  much  cooler  in  sum- 
mer and  so  much  warmer  in  winter! 

The   bee  is  in  the  main  an  honest  citizen:  she 
prefers  legitimate   to   illegitimate   business;   she   is 
never  an  outlaw  until  her  proper  sources  of  supply 
fail;    she  will  not   touch  honey  as  long   as   honey 
yielding  flowers  can  be  found;  she  always  prefers 
to  go  to  the  fountain-head,  and  dislikes  to  take  her 
sweets  at  second  hand.      But  in  the  fall,  after  the 
flowers  have  failed,  she  can  be  tempted.      The  bee- 
hunter  takes  advantage  of  this  fact ;  he  betrays  her 
with  a  little  honey.      He  wants  to  steal  her  stores, 
and  he  first  encourages  her  to  steal  his,  then  follows 
the  thief  home  with  her  booty.      This  is  the  whole 
trick  of    the  bee-hunter.      The  bees  never  suspect 
his   game,    else    by  taking  a  circuitous  route   they 


56  PEPACTON 

could  easily  baffle  him.  But  the  honey-bee  has 
absolutely  no  wit  or  cunning  outside  of  her  special 
gifts  as  a  gatherer  and  storer  of  honey.  She  is  a 
simple-minded  creature,  and  can  be  imposed  upon 
by  8iny  novice.  Yet  it  is  not  every  novice  that  can 
find  a  bee-tree.  The  sportsman  may  track  his  game 
to  its  retreat  by  the  aid  of  his  dog,  but  in  hunt- 
ing the  honey-bee  one  must  be  his  own  dog,  and 
track  his  game  through  an  element  in  which  it 
leaves  no  trail.  It  is  a  task  for  a  sharp,  quick 
eye,  and  may  test  the  resources  of  the  best  wood- 
craft. One  autumn,  when  I  devoted  much  time  to 
this  pursuit,  as  the  best  means  of  getting  at  nature 
and  the  open-air  exhilaration,  my  eye  became  so 
trained  that  bees  were  nearly  as  easy  to  it  as  birds. 
I  saw  and  heard  bees  wherever  I  went.  One  day, 
standing  on  a  street  corner  in  a  great  city,  I  saw 
above  the  trucks  and  the  traffic  a  line  of  bees  carry- 
ing off  sweets  from  some  grocery  or  confectionery 
shop. 

One  looks  upon  the  woods  with  a  new  interest 
when  he  suspects  they  hold  a  colony  of  bees.  What 
a  pleasing  secret  it  is,  —  a  tree  with  a  heart  of  comb 
honey,  a  decayed  oak  or  maple  with  a  bit  of  Sicily 
or  Mount  Hymettus  stowed  away  in  its  trunk  or 
branches;  secret  chambers  where  lies  hidden  the 
wealth  of  ten  thousand  little  freebooters,  great  nug- 
gets and  wedges  of  precious  ore  gathered  with  risk 
and  labor  from  every  field  and  wood  about ! 

But  if  you  would  know  the  delights  of  bee-hunt- 
ing, and  how  many  sweets  such  a  trip  yields  beside 


AN   IUYL   OF   THE    HONEY-BEE  57 

honey,  come  with  me  some  bright,  warm,  late  Sep- 
tember or  early  October  day.      It  is  the  golden  sea- 
son  of   the   year,  and   any   errand    or   pursuit   that 
takes  us  abroad  upon  the  hills  or  by  the  painted 
woods  and  along  the  amber- colored  streams  at  such 
a  time  is  enough.      So,  with  haversacks  filled  with 
grapes  and  peaches  and  apples  and  a  bottle  of  milk, 
—  for  we  shall  not  be  home  to- dinner,  — and  armed 
with  a  compass,  a  hatchet,  a  pail,  and  a  box  with  a 
piece  of  comb  honey  neatly  fitted  into  it,  —  any  box 
the    size  of  your    hand  with  a   lid  will  do  nearly 
as  well  as  the  elaborate  and  ingenious  contrivance 
of  the  regular  bee-hunter,  —  we  sally  forth.      Our 
course  at  first  lies  along  the  highway  under  great 
chestnut-trees  whose  nuts  are  just  dropping,    then 
through  an  orchard  and  across  a  little  creek,  thence 
gently   rising   through   a   long   series   of   cultivated 
fields  toward  some  high  uplying  land  behind  which 
rises  a  rugged  wooded  ridge  or  mountain,  the  most 
sightly  point  in  all  this  section.      Behind  this  ridge 
for  several  miles  the  country  is  wild,  wooded,  and 
rocky,    and   is  no   doubt   the   home   of   many  wild 
swarms  of  bees.      What  a  gleeful  uproar  the  robins, 
cedar-birds,   high-holes,    and  cow    blackbirds    make 
amid  the  black  cherry  trees  as  we  pass  along !     The 
raccoons,  too,  have  been  here  after  black  cherries, 
and  we  see  their  marks  at  various  points.      Several 
crows  are  walking  about  a  newly  sowed  wheatfield 
we  pass  through,  and  we  pause  to  note  their  grace- 
ful movements  and  glossy  coats.      I  have  seen  no 
bird  walk  the  ground  with  just  the  same  air  the 


58  PEPACTON 

crow  does.  It  is  not  exactly  pride;  there  is  no 
strut  or  swagger  in  it,  though  perhaps  just  a  little 
condescension;  it  is  the  contented,  complaisant,  and 
self-possessed  gait  of  a  lord  over  his  domains.  All 
these  acres  are  mine,  he  says,  and  all  these  crops; 
men  plow  and  sow  for  me,  and  I  stay  here  or  go 
there;  and  find  life  sweet  and  good  wherever  I  am. 
The  hawk  looks  awkward  and  out  of  place  on  the 
ground;  the  game-birds  hurry  and  skulk;  but  the 
crow  is  at  home,  and  treads  the  earth  as  if  there 
were  none  to  molest  or  make  him  afraid. 

The  crows  we  have  always  with  us,  but  it  is  not 
every  day  or  every  season  that  one  sees  an  eagle. 
Hence  I  must  preserve  the  memory  of  one  I  saw 
the  last  day  I  went  bee-hunting.  As  I  was  laboring 
up  the  side  of  a  mountain  at  the  head  of  a  valley, 
the  noble  bird  sprang  from  the  top  of  a  dry  tree 
above  me  and  came  sailing  directly  over  my  head. 
I  saw  him  bend  his  eye  down  upon  me,  and  I  could 
hear  the  low  hum  of  his  plumage  as  if  the  web  of 
every  quill  in  his  great  wings  vibrated  in  his  strong, 
level  flight.  I  watched  him  as  long  as  my  e}Te  could 
hold  him.  When  he  was  fairly  clear  of  the  moun- 
tain he  began  that  sweeping  spiral  movement  in 
which  he  climbs  the  sky.  Up  and  up  he  went, 
without  once  breaking  his  majestic  poise,  till  he 
appeared  to  sight  some  far-off  alien  geography,  when 
he  bent  his  course  thitherward  and  gradually  van- 
ished in  the  blue  depths.  The  eagle  is  a  bird  of 
large  ideas;  he  embraces  long  distances;  the  conti- 
nent is  his  home.      I  never  look  upon  one  without 


AN    IDYL    OF    THE    HONEY-BEE  59 

emotion;  I  follow  him  with  my  eye  as  long  as  I 
can.  I  think  of  Canada,  of  the  Great  Lakes,  of 
the  Eocky  Mountains,  of  the  wild  and  sounding 
seacoast.  The  waters  are  his,  and  the  woods  and 
the  inaccessible  cliffs.  He  pierces  behind  the  veil 
of  the  storm,  and  his  joy  is  height  and  depth  and 
vast  spaces. 

We  go  out  of  our  way  to  touch  at  a  spring  run 
in  the  edge  of  the  woods,  and  are  lucky  to  find  a 
single  scarlet  lobelia  lingering  there.  It  seems  al- 
most to  light  up  the  gloom  with  its  intense  bit  of 
color.  Beside  a  ditch  in  a  field  beyond,  we  find  the 
great  blue  lobelia,  and  near  it,  amid  the  weeds  and 
wild  grasses  and  purple  asters,  the  most  beautiful  of 
our  fall  flowers,  the  fringed  gentian.  What  a  rare 
and  delicate,  almost  aristocratic  look  the  gentian 
has  amid  its  coarse,  unkempt  surroundings!  It 
does  not  lure  the  bee,  but  it  lures  and  holds  every 
passing  human  eye.  If  we  strike  through  the  cor- 
ner of  yonder  woods,  where  the  ground  is  moistened 
by  hidden  springs,  and  where  there  is  a  little  open- 
ing amid  the  trees,  we>  shall  find  the  closed  gentian, 
a  rare  flower  in  this  locality.  I  had  walked  this 
way  many  times  before  I  chanced  upon  its  retreat, 
and  then  I  was  following  a  line  of  bees.  I  lost  the 
bees,  but  I  got  the  gentians.  How  curious  this 
flower  looks  with  its  deep  blue  petals  folded  together 
so  tightly,  —  a  bud  and  yet  a  blossom !  It  is  the 
nun  among  our  wild  flowers,  —  a  form  closely  veiled 
and  cloaked.  The  buccaneer  bumblebee  sometimes 
tries  to  rifle  it  of  its  sweets.      I  have  seen  the  bios- 


60  PEPACTON 

som  with  the  bee  entombed  in  it.  He  had  forced 
his  way  into  the  virgin  corolla  as  if  determined  to 
know  its  secret,  but  he  had  never  returned  with  the 
knowledge  he  had  gained. 

After  a  refreshing  walk  of  a  couple  of  miles  we 
reach  a  point  where  we  will  make  our  first  trial,  — 
a  high  stone  wall  that  runs  parallel  with  the  wooded 
ridge  referred  to,  and  separated  from  it  by  a  broad 
field.  There  are  bees  at  work  there  on  that  golden- 
rod,  and  it  requires  but  little  manoeuvring  to  sweep 
one  into  our  box.  Almost  any  other  creature  rudely 
and  suddenly  arrested  in  its  career,  and  clapped  into 
a  cage  in  this  way,  would  show  great  confusion  and 
alarm.  The  bee  is  alarmed  for  a  moment,  but  the 
bee  has  a  passion  stronger  than  its  love  of  life  or 
fear  of  death,  namely,  desire  for  honey,  not  simply 
to  eat,  but  to  carry  home  as  booty.  "Such  rage  of 
honey  in  their  bosom  beats,"  says  Virgil.  It  is 
quick  to  catch  the  scent  of  honey  in  the  box,  and 
as  quick  to  fall .  to  filling  itself.  We  now  set  the 
box  down  upon  the  wall  and  gently  remove  the 
cover.  The  bee  is  head  and  shoulders  in  one  of 
the  half-filled  cells,  and  is  oblivious  to  everything 
else  about  it.  Come  rack,  come  ruin,  it  will  die  at 
work.  We  step  back  a  few  paces,  and  sit  down 
upon  the  ground  so  as  to  bring  the  box  against  the 
blue  sky  as  a  background.  In  two  or  three  minutes 
the  bee  is  seen  rising  slowly  and  heavily  from  the 
box.  It  seems  loath  to  leave  so  much  honey  behind, 
and  it  marks  the  place  well.  It  mounts  aloft  in  a 
rapidly   increasing   spiral,    surveying   the   near  and 


AN    IDYL   OF   THE    HONEY-BEE  61 

minute  objects  first,  then  the  larger  and  more  dis- 
tant, till,  having  circled  above  the  spot  five  or  six 
times  and  taken  all  its  bearings,  it  darts  away  for 
home.     .  It  is  a  good  eye  that  holds  fast  to  the  bee 
till   it   is    fairly   off.      Sometimes    one's    head   will 
swim  following  it,  and  often  one's  eyes  are  put  out 
by  the  sun.      This  bee  gradually  drifts   down  the 
hill,  then  strikes  away  toward  a  farmhouse  half  a 
mile  away  where  I  know  bees  are  kept.      Then  we 
try  another  and  another,  and  the  third  bee,  much 
to  our  satisfaction,  goes  straight  toward  the  woods. 
We  could  see  the  brown  speck  against  the  darker 
background    for    many    yards.       The    regular    bee- 
hunter  professes  to  be  able  to  tell  a  wild  bee  from  a 
tame  one  by  the  color,  the  former,  he  says,  being 
lighter.      But  there  is  no  difference ;  they  are  both 
alike    in    color    and   in   manner.      Young   bees   are 
lighter  than  old,  and  that  is  all  there  is  of  it.      If 
a  bee  lived  many  years  in  the  woods  it  would  doubt- 
less come  to  have  some  distinguishing  marks,  but 
the  life  of  a  bee  is  only  a  few  months  at  the  far- 
thest, and  no  change  is  wrought  in  this  brief  time. 

Our  bees  are  all  soon  back,  and  more  with  them, 
for  we  have  touched  the  box  here  and  there  with 
the  cork  of  a  bottle  of  anise  oil,  and  this  fragrant 
and  pungent  oil  will  attract  bees  half  a  mile  or 
more.  When  no  flowers  can  be  found,  this  is  the 
quickest  way  to  obtain  a  bee. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  when  the  bee  first  finds 
the  hunter's  box,  its  first  feeling  is  one  of  anger;  it 
is  as  mad  as  a  hornet;  its  tone  changes,  it  sounds 


G2  PEPA.CTON 

its  shrill  war  trumpet  and  darts  to  and  fro,  and 
gives  vent  to  its  rage  and  indignation  in  no  uncer- 
tain manner.  It  seems  to  scent  foul  play  at  once. 
It  says,  "Here  is  robbery;  here  is  the  spoil  of 
some  hive,  may  be  my  own,"  and  its  blood  is  up. 
But  its  ruling  passion  soon  comes  to  the  surface,  its 
avarice  gets  the  better  of  its  indignation,  and  it 
seems  to  say,  "Well,  I  had  better  take  possession 
of  this  and  carry  it  home."  So  after  many  feints 
and  approaches  and  dartings  off  with  a  loud  angry 
hum  as  if  it  would  none  of  it,  the  bee  settles  down 
and  fills  itself. 

It  does  not  entirely  cool  off  and  get  soberly  to 
work  till  it  has  made  two  or  three  trips  home  with 
its  booty.  When  other  bees  come,  even  if  all  from 
the  same  swarm,  they  quarrel  and  dispute  over  the 
box,  and  clip  and  dart  at  each  other  like  bantam 
cocks.  Apparently  the  ill  feeling  which  the  sight 
of  the  honey  awakens  is  not  one  of  jealousy  or 
rivalry,  but  wrath. 

A  bee  will  usually  make  three  or  four  trips  from 
the  hunter's  box  before  it  brings  back  a  companion. 
I  suspect  the  bee  does  not  tell  its  fellows  what  it 
has  found,  but  that  they  smell  out  the  secret;  it 
doubtless  bears  some  evidence  with  it  upon  its  feet 
or  proboscis  that  it  has  been  upon  honeycomb  and 
not  upon  flowers,  and  its  companions  take  the  hint 
and  follow,  arriving  always  many  seconds  behind. 
Then  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the  booty  would 
also  betray  it.  No  doubt,  also,  there  are  plenty  of 
gossips  about  a  hive  that  note  and  tell  everything. 


AN    IDYL   OF   THE    HONEY-BEE  63 

"Oh,  did  you  see  that?  Peggy  Mel  came  in  a  few 
moments  ago  in  great  haste,  and  one  of  the  upstairs 
packers  says  she  was  loaded  till  she  groaned  with 
apple-blossom  honey,  which  she  deposited,  and  then 
rushed  off  again  like  mad.  Apple-blossom  honey  in 
October !  Fee,  fi,  fo,  fum !  I  smell  something !  Let 's 
after." 

In  about  half  an  hour  we  have  three  well-defined 
lines  of  bees  established,  —  two  to  farmhouses  and 
one  to  the  woods,  and  our  box  is  being  rapidly 
depleted  of  its  honey.  About  every  fourth  bee 
goes  to  the  woods,  and  now  that  they  have  learned 
the  way  thoroughly  they  do  not  make  the  long  pre- 
liminary whirl  above  the  box,  but  start  directly 
from  it.  The  woods  are  rough  and  dense  and  the 
hill  steep,  and  we  do  not  like  to  follow  the  line  of 
bees  until  we  have  tried  at  least  to  settle  the  prob- 
lem as  to  the  distance  they  go  into  the  woods,  — 
whether  the  tree  is  on  this  side  of  the  ridge  or  into 
the  depth  of  the  forest  on  the  other  side.  So  we 
shut  up  the  box  when  it  is  full  of  bees  and  carry 
it  about  three  hundred  yards  along  the  wall  from 
which  we  are  operating.  When  liberated,  the  bees, 
as  they  always  will  in  such  cases,  go  off  in  the  same 
directions  they  have  been  going ;  they  do  not  seem 
to  know  that  they  have  been  moved.  But  other 
bees  have  followed  our  scent,  and  it  is  not  many 
minutes  before  a  second  line  to  the  woods  is  estab- 
lished. This  is  called  cross-lining  the  bees.  The 
new  line  makes  a  sharp  angle  with  the  other  line, 
and  we  know  at  once  that  the  tree  is  only  a  few 


64  PEPACTON 

rods  into  the  woods.  The  two  lines  we  have  estab- 
lished form  two  sides  of  a  triangle  of  which  the 
wall  is  the  base;  at  the  apex  of  the  triangle,  or 
where  the  two  lines  meet  in  the  woods,  we  are  sure 
to  find  the  tree.  We  quickly  follow  up  these  lines, 
and  where  they  cross  each  other  on  the  side  of 
the  hill  we  scan  every  tree  closely.  I  pause  at  the 
foot  of  an  oak  and  examine  a  hole  near  the  root; 
now  the  bees  are  in  this  tree  and  their  entrance 
is  on  the  upper  side  near  the  ground  not  two  feet 
from  the  hole  I  peer  into,  and  yet  so  quiet  and  secret 
is  their  going  and  coming  that  I  fail  to  discover 
them  and  pass  on  up  the  hill.  Failing  in  this  direc- 
tion I  return  to  the  oak  again,  and  then  perceive 
the  bees  going  out  in  a  small  crack  in  the  tree.  The 
bees  do  not  know  they  are  found  out  and  that  the 
game  is  in  our  hands,  and  are  as  oblivious  of  our 
presence  as  if  we  were  ants  or  crickets.  The  indi- 
cations are  that  the  swarm  is  a  small  one,  and  the 
store  of  honey  trifling.  In  "taking  up"  a  bee- tree 
it  is  usual  first  to  kill  or  stupefy  the  bees  with  the 
fumes  of  burning  sulphur  or  with  tobacco  smoke. 
But  this  course  is  impracticable  on  the  present  occa- 
sion, so  we  boldly  and  ruthlessly  assault  the  tree 
with  an  axe  we  have  procured.  At  the  first  blow 
the  bees  set  up  a  loud  buzzing,  but  we  have  no 
mercy,  and  the  side  of  the  cavity  is  soon  cut  away 
and  the  interior  with  its  white-yellow  mass  of  comb 
honey  is  exposed,  and  not  a  bee  strikes  a  blow  in 
defense  of  its  all.  This  may  seem  singular,  but  it 
has  nearly   always  been  my   experience.      When  a 


AN    IDYL    OF   THE    HONEY-BEE  65 

swarm  of  bees  are  thus  rudely  assaulted  with  an  axe 
they  evidently  think  the  end  of  the  world  has  come, 
and,  like  true  misers  as  they  are,  each  one  seizes  as 
much  of  the  treasure  as  it  can  hold ;  in  other  words, 
they  all  fall  to  and  gorge  themselves  with  honey, 
and  calmly  await  the  issue.  While  in  this  condi- 
tion they  make  no  defense,  and  will  not  sting  unless 
taken  hold  of.  In  fact  they  are  as  harmless  as 
flies.  Bees  are  always  to  be  managed  with  boldness 
and  decision.  Any  half-way  measures,  any  timid 
poking  about,  any  feeble  attempts  to  reach  their 
honey,  are  sure  to  be  quickly  resented.  The  popu- 
lar notion  that  bees  have  a  special  antipathy  toward 
certain  persons  and  a  liking  for  certain  others  has 
only  this  fact  at  the  bottom  of  it:  they  will  sting 
a  person  who  is  afraid  of  them  and  goes  skulking 
and  dodging  about,  and  they  will  not  sting  a  person 
who  faces  them  boldly  and  has  no  dread  of  them. 
They  are  like  dogs.  The  way  to  disarm  a  vicious 
dog  is  to  show  him  you  do  not  fear  him;  it  is  his 
turn  to  be  afraid  then.  I  never  had  any  dread  of 
bees  and  am  seldom  stung  by  them.  I  have  climbed 
up  into  a  large  chestnut  that  contained  a  swarm  in 
one  of  its  cavities  and  chopped  them  out  with  an 
axe,  being  obliged  at  times  to  pause  and  brush  the 
bewildered  bees  from  my  hands  and  face,  and  not 
been  stung  once.  I  have  chopped  a  swarm  out  of 
an  apple-tree  in  June,  and  taken  out  the  cards  of 
honey  and  arranged  them  in  a  hive,  and  then  dipped 
out  the  bees  with  a  dipper,  and  taken  the  whole 
home  with  me  in  pretty  good  condition,  with  scarcely 


66  PEPACTON 

any  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  bees.  In  reach- 
ing your  hand  into  the  cavity  to  detach  and  remove 
the  comb  you  are  pretty  sure  to  get  stung,  for  when 
you  touch  the  "business  end"  of  a  bee,  it  will  sting 
even  though  its  head  be  off.  But  the  bee  carries 
the  antidote  to  its  own  poison.  The  best  remedy 
for  bee  sting  is  honey,  and  when  your  hands  are 
besmeared  with  honey,  as  they  are  sure  to  be  on 
such  occasions,  the  wound  is  scarcely  more  painful 
than  the  prick  of  a  pin.  Assault  your  bee-tree, 
then,  boldly  with  your  axe,  and  you  will  find  that 
when  the  honey  is  exposed  every  bee  has  surren- 
dered and  the  whole  swarm  is  cowering  in  helpless 
bewilderment  and  terror.  Our  tree  yields  only  a 
few  pounds  of  honey,  not  enough  to  have  lasted 
the  swarm  till  January,  but  no  matter:  we  have 
the  less  burden  to  carry. 

In  the  afternoon  we  go  nearly  half  a  mile  farther 
along  the  ridge  to  a  cornfield  that  lies  immediately 
in  front  of  the  highest  point  of  the  mountain.  The 
view  is  superb;  the  ripe  autumn  landscape  rolls 
away  to  the  east,  cut  through  by  the  great  placid 
river ;  in  the  extreme  north  the  wall  of  the  Catskills 
stands  out  clear  and  strong,  while  in  the  south  the 
mountains  of  the  Highlands  bound  the  view.  The 
day  is  warm,  and  the  bees  are  very  busy  there  in 
that  neglected  corner  of  the  field,  rich  in  asters, 
fleabane,  and  goldenrod.  The  corn  has  been  cut, 
and  upon  a  stout  but  a  few  rods  from  the  woods, 
which  here  drop  quickly  down  from  the  precipitous 
heights,  we  set  up  our  bee-box,  touched  again  with 


AN    IDYL    OF    THE    HONEY-BEE  67 

the    pungent   oil.      In   a    few   moments   a   bee   has 
found  it;   she  comes  up  to  leeward,    following   the 
scent.     On  leaving  the  box,  she  goes  straight  toward 
the  woods.      More  bees  quickly  come,  and  it  is  not 
long  before  the   line  is  well  established.      Now  we 
have    recourse    to    the    same    tactics   we    employed 
before,  and  move  along  the  ridge  to  another  field  to 
get  our  cross  line.      But  the  bees  still  go  in  almost 
the  same  direction  they  did   from   the  corn  stout. 
The  tree  is  then  either  on  the  top  of  the  mountain 
or  on  the  other  or  west  side  of  it.      We  hesitate  to 
make  the  plunge  into  the  woods  and  seek  to  scale 
those  precipices,  for  the  eye  can  plainly  see  what  is 
before   us.      As  the   afternoon   sun  gets  lower,  the 
bees  are   seen  with  wonderful   distinctness.      They 
fly  toward  and  under  the  sun,  and  are  in  a  strong 
light,  while  the  near  woods  which  form  the  back- 
ground are  in  deep  shadow.      They  look  like  large 
luminous  motes.      Their  swiftly  vibrating,  transpar- 
ent  wings   surround   their    bodies   with    a    shining 
nimbus  that  makes  them  visible  for  a  long  distance. 
They  seem  magnified  many  times.      AYe  see  them 
bridge  the  little  gulf  between  us  and  the  woods, 
then  rise  up  over  the  treetops  with  their  burdens, 
swerving  neither  to  the  right  hand  nor  to  the  left. 
It  is  almost  pathetic  to  see  them  labor  so,  climbing 
the  mountain  and  unwittingly  guiding  us  to  their 
treasures.      When   the   sun  gets  down  so   that   his 
direction  corresponds  exactly  with  the  course  of  the 
bees,  we  make  the  plunge.      It  proves  even  harder 
climbing  than  we  had  anticipated ;  the  mountain  is 


68  PEPACTON 

faced  by  a  broken  and  irregular  wall  of  rock,  up 
which  we  pull  ourselves  slowly  and  cautiously  by 
main  strength.  In  half  an  hour,  the  perspiration 
streaming  from  every  pore,  we  reach  the  summit. 
The  trees  here  are  all  small,  a  second  growth,  and 
we  are  soon  convinced  the  bees  are  not  here.  Then 
down  we  go  on  the  other  side,  clambering  down  tht, 
rocky  stairways  till  we  reach  quite  a  broad  plateau 
that  forms  something  like  the  shoulder  of  the  moun- 
tain. On  the  brink  of  this  there  are  many  large 
hemlocks,  and  we  scan  them  closely  and  rap  upon 
them  with  our  axe.  But  not  a  bee  is  seen  or  heard ; 
we  do  not  seem  as  near  the  tree  as  we  were  in  the 
fields  below ;  yet,  if  some  divinity  would  only  whis- 
per the  fact  to  us,  we  are  within  a  few  rods  of  the 
coveted  prize,  which  is  not  in  one  of  the  large  hem- 
locks or  oaks  that  absorb  our  attention,  but  in  an 
old  stub  or  stump  not  six  feet  high,  and  which  we 
have  seen  and  passed  several  times  without  giving 
it  a  thought.  We  go  farther  down  the  mountain 
and  beat  about  to  the  right  and  left,  and  get  entan- 
gled in  brush  and  arrested  by  precipices,  and  finally, 
as  the  day  is  nearly  spent,  give  up  the  search  and 
leave  the  woods  quite  baffled,  but  resolved  to  return 
on  the  morrow.  The  next  day  we  come  back  and 
commence  operations  in  an  opening  in  the  woods 
well  down  on  the  side  of  the  mountain  where  we 
gave  up  the  search.  Our  box  is  soon  swarming 
with  the  eager  bees,  and  they  go  back  toward  the 
summit  we  have  passed.  We  follow  back  and  es- 
tablish a  new  line,  where  the  ground  will  permit; 


AN    IDYL   OF   THE    HONEY-BEE  69 

then  another  and  still  another,  and  yet  the  riddle 
is  not  solved.  One  time  we  are  south  of  them, 
then  north,  then  the  bees  get  up  through  the  trees 
and  we  cannot  tell  where  they  go.  But  after  much 
searching,  and  after  the  mystery  seems  rather  to 
deepen  than  to  clear  up,  we  chance  to  pause  beside 
the  old  stump.  A  bee  comes  out  of  a  small  open- 
ing like  that  made  by  ants  in  decayed  wood,  rubs 
its  eyes  and  examines  its  antenna?,  as  bees  always 
do  before  leaving  their  hive,  then  takes  flight.  At 
the  same  instant  several  bees  come  by  us  loaded 
with  our  honey  and  settle  home  with  that  peculiar 
low,  complacent  buzz  of  the  well-filled  insect.  Here, 
then,  is  our  idyl,  our  bit  of  Virgil  and  Theocritus, 
in  a  decayed  stump  of  a  hemlock  tree.  We  could 
tear  it  open  with  our  hands,  and  a  bear  would  find 
it  an  easy  prize,  and  a  rich  one,  too,  for  we  take 
from  it  fifty  pounds  of  excellent  honey.  The  bees 
have  been  here  many  years,  and  have  of  course 
sent  out  swarm  after  swarm  into  the  wilds.  They 
have  protected  themselves  against  the  weather  and 
strengthened  their  shaky  habitation  by  a  copious 
use  of  wax. 

When  a  bee-tree  is  thus  "taken  up"  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  day,  of  course  a  good  many  bees  are  away 
from  home  and  have  not  heard  the  news.  When 
they  return  and  find  the  ground  flowing  with  honey, 
and  piles  of  bleeding  combs  lying  about,  they  appar- 
ently do  not  recognize  the  place,  and  their  first 
instinct  is  to  fall  to  and  fill  themselves;  this  done, 
their  next  thought  is  to  carry  it  home,  so  they  rise 


70  PEPACTON 

up  slowly  through  the  branches  of  the  trees  till 
they  have  attained  an  altitude  that  enables  them  to 
survey  the  scene,  when  they  seem  to  say,  "Why, 
this  is  home,"  and  down  they  come  again;  behold- 
ing the  wreck  and  ruins  once  more,  they  still  think 
there  is  some  mistake,  and  get  up  a  second  or  a  third 
time  and  then  drop  back  pitifully  as  before.  It  is 
the  most  pathetic  sight  of  all,  the  surviving  and 
bewildered  bees  struggling  to  save  a  few  drops  of 
their  wasted  treasures. 

Presently,  if  there  is  another  swarm  in  the  woods, 
robber  bees  appear.  You  may  know  them  by  their 
saucy,  chiding,  devil-may-care  hum.  It  is  an  ill 
wind  that  blows  nobody  good,  and  they  make  the 
most  of  the  misfortune  of  their  neighbors,  and 
thereby  pave  the  way  for  their  own  ruin.  The 
hunter  marks  their  course  and  the  next  day  looks 
them  up.  On  this  occasion  the  day  was  hot  and 
the  honey  very  fragrant,  and  a  line  of  bees  was  soon 
established  S.  S.  W.  Though  there  was  much 
refuse  honey  in  the  old  stub,  and  though  little 
golden  rills  trickled  down  the  hill  from  it,  and  the 
near  branches  and  saplings  were  besmeared  with  it 
where  we  wiped  our  murderous  hands,  yet  not  a 
drop  was  wasted.  It  was  a  feast  to  which  not  only 
honey-bees  came,  but  bumblebees,  wasps,  hornets, 
flies,  ants.  The  bumblebees,  which  at  this  season 
are  hungry  vagrants  with  no  fixed  place  of  abode, 
would  gorge  themselves,  then  creep  beneath  the  bits 
of  empty  comb  or  fragments  of  bark  and  pass  the 
night,  and  renew  the  feast  next  day.      The  bumble- 


AN   IDYL    OF    THE    HONEY-BEE  71 

bee  is  an  insect  of  which  the  bee-hunter  sees  much. 
There  are  all  sorts  and  sizes  of  them.  They  are 
dull  and  clumsy  compared  with  the  honey-bee. 
Attracted  in  the  fields  by  the  bee-hunter's  box, 
they  will  come  up  the  wind  on  the  scent  and  blun- 
der into  it  in  the  most  stupid,  lubberly  fashion. 

The  honey-bees  that  licked  up  our  leavings  on 
the  old  stub  belonged  to  a  swarm,    as   it  proved, 
about  half  a  mile  farther  down  the  ridge,  and  a  few 
days  afterward  fate  overtook  them,  and  their  stores 
in  turn  became  the  prey  of  another  swarm  in  the 
vicinity,  which  also  tempted  Providence  and  were 
overwhelmed.      The    first-mentioned   swarm   I   had 
lined  from  several  points,  and  was  following  up  the 
clew  over  rocks  and  through  gulleys,  when  I  came 
to   where  a  large   hemlock  had  been  felled  a  few 
years  before,  and  a  swarm  taken  from  a  cavity  near 
the  top  of  it;  fragments  of  the  old  comb  were  yet 
to  be  seen.      A  few  yards  away  stood  another  short, 
squatty  hemlock,  and  I  said  my  bees  ought  to  be 
there.      As  I  paused  near  it,  I  noticed  where  the 
tree  had  been  wounded  with  an  axe  a  couple  of  feet 
from  the  ground  many  years  before.      The  wound 
had  partially  grown  over,  but  there  was  an  opening 
there  that  I  did  not  see  at  the  first  glance.      I  was 
about  to  pass  on  when  a  bee  passed  me  making  that 
peculiar  shrill,    discordant  hum  that  a  bee   makes 
when  besmeared  with  honey.      I  saw  it   alight   in 
the  partially  closed  wound  and  crawl   home;   then 
came  others  and  others,  little   bands  and  squads  of 
them  heavily  freighted  with  honey  from  the  box. 


72  PEPACTON 

The  tree  was  about  twenty  inches  through  and  hol- 
low at  the  butt,  or  from  the  axe-mark  down.  This 
space  the  bees  had  completely  filled  with  honey. 
With  an  axe  we  cut  away  the  outer  ring  of  live 
wood  and  exposed  the  treasure.  Despite  the  utmost 
care,  we  wounded  the  comb  so  that  little  rills  of 
the  golden  liquid  issued  from  the  root  of  the  tree 
and  trickled  down  the  hill. 

The  other  bee-tree  in  the  vicinity  to  which  I 
have  referred  we  found  one  warm  November  day  in 
less  than  half  an  hour  after  entering  the  woods.  It 
also  was  a  hemlock  that  stood  in  a  niche  in  a  wall 
of  hoary,  moss-covered  rocks  thirty  feet  high.  The 
tree  hardly  reached  to  the  top  of  the  precipice. 
The  bees  entered  a  small  hole  at  the  root,  which 
was  seven  or  eight  feet  from  the  ground.  The  po- 
sition was  a  striking  one.  Never  did  apiary  have 
a  finer  outlook  or  more  rugged  surroundings.  A 
black,  wood-embraced  lake  lay  at  our  feet;  the 
long  panorama  of  the  Catskills  filled  the  far  dis- 
tance, and  the  more  broken  outlines  of  the  Shawan- 
gunk  range  filled  the  rear.  On  every  hand  were 
precipices  and  a  wild  confusion  of  rocks  and  trees. 

The  cavity  occupied  by  the  bees  was  about  three 
feet  and  a  half  long  and  eight  or  ten  inches  in 
diameter.  With  an  axe  we  cut  away  one  side  of  the 
tree,  and  laid  bare  its  curiously  wrought  heart  of 
honey.  It  was  a  most  pleasing  sight.  W7hat  wind- 
ing and  devious  ways  the  bees  had  through  their 
palace!  What  great  masses  and  blocks  of  snow- 
white  comb  there  were !     Where  it  was  sealed  up, 


AN   IDYL   OF   THE    HONEY-BEE  73 

presenting  that  slightly  dented,  uneven  surface,  it 
looked  like  some  precious  ore.  When  we  carried 
a  large  pailful  of  it  out  of  the  woods  it  seemed 
still  more  like  ore. 

Your  native  bee-hunter  predicates  the  distance 
of  the  tree  by  the  time  the  bee  occupies  in  making 
its  first  trip.  But  this  is  no  certain  guide.  You 
are  always  safe  in  calculating  that  the  tree  is  inside 
of  a  mile,  and  you  need  not  as  a  rule  look  for  your 
bee's  return  under  ten  minutes.  One  day  I  picked 
up  a  bee  in  an  opening  in  the  woods  and  gave  it 
honey,  and  it  made  three  trips  to  my  box  with  an 
interval  of  about  twelve  minutes  between  them;  it 
returned  alone  each  time;  the  tree,  which  I  after- 
ward found,  was  about  half  a  mile  distant. 

In  lining  bees  through  the  woods  the  tactics  of 
the  hunter  are  to  pause  every  twenty  or  thirty  rods, 
lop  away  the  branches  or  cut  down  the  trees,  and 
set  the  bees  to  work  again.  If  they  still  go  for- 
ward, he  goes  forward  also  and  repeats  his  observa- 
tions till  the  tree  is  found,  or  till  the  bees  turn  and 
come  back  upon  the  trail.  Then  he  knows  he  has 
passed  the  tree,  and  he  retraces  his  steps  to  a  con- 
venient distance  and  tries  again,  and  thus  quickly 
reduces  the  space  to  be  looked  over  till  the  swarm 
is  traced  home.  On  one  occasion,  in  a  wild  rocky 
wood,  where  the  surface  alternated  between  deep 
gulfs  and  chasms  filled  with  thick,  heavy  growths 
of  timber  and  sharp,  precipitous,  rocky  ridges  like 
a  tempest-tossed  sea,  I  carried  my  bees  directly 
under  their  tree,  and  set  them  to  work  from  a  high, 


74  PEPACTON 

exposed  ledge  of  rocks  not  thirty  feet  distant.  One 
would  have  expected  them  under  such  circumstances 
to  have  gone  straight  home,  as  there  were  but  few 
branches  intervening,  but  they  did  not;  they  la- 
bored up  through  the  trees  and  attained  an  altitude 
above  the  woods  as  if  they  had  miles  to  travel,  and 
thus  baffled  me  for  hours.  Bees  will  always  do 
this.  They  are  acquainted  with  the  woods  only 
from  the  top  side,  and  from  the  air  above;  they 
recognize  home  only  by  landmarks  here,  and  in 
every  instance  they  rise  aloft  to  take  their  bearings. 
Think  how  familiar  to  them  the  topography  of  the 
forest  summits  must  be,  —  an  umbrageous  sea  or 
plain  where  every  mark  and  point  is  known. 

Another  curious  fact  is  that  generally  you  will 
get  track  of  a  bee-tree  sooner  when  you  are  half  a 
mile  from  it  than  when  you  are  only  a  few  yards. 
Bees,  like  us  human  insects,  have  little  faith  in  the 
near  at  hand;  they  expect  to  make  their  fortune  in 
a  distant  field,  they  are  lured  by  the  remote  and 
the  difficult,  and  hence  overlook  the  flower  and  the 
sweet  at  their  very  door.  On  several  occasions  I 
have  unwittingly  set  my  box  within  a  few  paces  of 
a  bee-tree  and  waited  long  for  bees  without  getting 
them,  when,  on  removing  to  a  distant  field  or  open- 
ing in  the  woods,  I  have  got  a  clew  at  once. 

I  have  a  theory  that  when  bees  leave  the  hive, 
unless  there  is  some  special  attraction  in  some  other 
direction,  they  generally  go  against  the  wind. 
They  would  thus  have  the  wind  with  them  when 
they  returned  home  heavily  laden,  and  with  these 


AN   IDYL    OF   THE    HONEY-BKK  75 

little  navigators  the  difference  is  an  important  one. 
With  a  full  cargo,  a  stiff  head-wind  is  a  great  hin- 
drance, but  fresh  and  empty-handed  they  can  face 
it  with  more  ease.  Virgil  says  bees  bear  gravel 
stones  as  ballast,  but  their  only  ballast  is  their 
honey-bag.  Hence,  when  I  go  bee-hunting,  I  pre- 
fer to  get  to  windward  of  the  woods  in  which  the 
swarm  is  supposed  to  have  refuge. 

Bees,  like  the  milkman,  like  to  be  near  a  spring. 
They  do  water  their  honey,  especially  in  a  dry 
time.  The  liquid  is  then  of  course  thicker  and 
sweeter,  and  will  bear  diluting.  Hence  old  bee- 
hunters  look  for  bee-trees  along  creeks  and  near 
spring  runs  in  the  woods.  I  once  found  a  tree  a 
long  distance  from  any  water,  and  the  honey  had 
a  peculiar  bitter  flavor,  imparted  to  it,  I  was  con- 
vinced, by  rainwater  sucked  from  the  decayed  and 
spongy  hemlock-tree  in  which  the  swarm  was  found. 
In  cutting  into  the  tree,  the  north  side  of  it  was 
found  to  be.  saturated  with  water  like  a  spring,  which 
ran  out  in  big  drops,  and  had  a  bitter  flavor.  The 
bees  had  thus  found  a  spring  or  a  cistern  in  their 
own  house. 

Bees  are  exposed  to  many  hardships  and  many 
dangers.  Winds  and  storms  prove  as  disastrous  to 
them  as  to  other  navigators.  Black  spiders  lie  in 
wait  for  them  as  do  brigands  for  travelers.  One 
day,  as  I  was  looking  for  a  bee  amid  sonic  golden- 
rod,  I  spied  one  partly  concealed  under  a  leaf.  Its 
baskets  were  full  of  pollen,  and  it  did  not  move. 
On   lifting   up  the   leaf  1   discovered   that   a   hairy 


76  PEPACTON 

spider  was  ambushed  there  and  had  the  bee  by  the 
throat.  The  vampire  was  evidently  afraid  of  the 
bee's  sting,  and  was  holding  it  by  the  throat  till 
quite  sure  of  its  death.  Virgil  speaks  of  the  painted 
lizard,  perhaps  a  species  of  salamander,  as  an  enemy 
of  the  honey-bee.  We  have  no  lizard  that  destroys 
the  bee;  but  our  tree-toad,  ambushed  among  the 
apple  and  cherry  blossoms,  snaps  them  up  whole- 
sale. Quick  as  lightning  that  subtle  but  clammy 
tongue  darts  forth,  and  the  unsuspecting  bee  is 
gone.  Virgil  also  accuses  the  titmouse  and  the 
woodpecker  of  preying  upon  the  bees,  and  our  king- 
bird has  been  charged  with  the  like  crime,  but  the 
latter  devours  only  the  drones.  The  workers  are 
either  too  small  and  quick  for  it  or  else  it  dreads 
their  sting. 

Virgil,  by  the  way,  had  little  more  than  a  child's 
knowledge  of  the  honey-bee.  There  is  little  fact 
and  much  fable  in  his  fourth  Georgic.  If  he  had 
ever  kept  bees  himself,  or  even  visited  an  apiary,  it 
is  hard  to  see  how  he  could  have  believed  that  the 
bee  in  its  flight  abroad  carried  a  gravel  stone  for 
ballast. 

"  And  as  when  empty  barks  on  billows  float, 
With  sandy  ballast  sailors  trim  the  boat ; 
So  bees  bear  gravel  stones,  whose  poising  weight 
Steers  through  the  whistling  winds  their  steady  flight;  " 

or  that,  when  two  colonies  made  war  upon  each 
other,  they  issued  forth  from  their  hives  led  by 
their  kings  and  fought  in  the  air,  strewing  the 
ground  with  the  dead  and  dying :  — 

"  Hard  hailstones  lie  not  thicker  on  the  plain, 
Nor  shaken  oaks  such  show'rs  of  acorns  rain." 


AN   IDYL   OF   THE    HONEY-BEE  77 

It  is  quite  certain  he  had  never  been  bee-hunting 
If  he  had  we  should  have  had  a  fifth  Georgic.  Yet 
he  seems  to  have  known  that  bees  sometimes  escaped 
to  the  woods :  — 

"  Nor  bees  are  lodged  in  hives  alone,  but  found 
In  chambers  of  their  own  beneath  the  ground: 
Their  vaulted  roofs  are  hung  in  pumices, 
And  in  the  rotten  trunks  of  hollow  trees." 

Wild  honey  is  as  near  like  tame  as  wild  bees  are 
like  their  brothers  in  the  hive.  The  only  difference 
is,  that  wild  honey  is  flavored  with  your  adventure, 
which  makes  it  a  little  more  delectable  than  the 
domestic  article. 


IV 

NATURE   AND   THE    POETS 

~T~  HAVE  said  on  a  former  occasion  that  "the  true 
-*-  poet  knows  more  about  Nature  than  the  natu- 
ralist, because  he  carries  her  open  secrets  in  his 
heart.  Eckermann  could  instruct  Goethe  in  orni- 
thology, but  could  not  Goethe  instruct  Eckermann 
in  the  meaning  and  mystery  of  the  bird  ? "  But 
the  poets  sometimes  rely  too  confidently  upon  their 
supposed  intuitive  knowledge  of  nature,  and  grow 
careless  about  the  accuracy  of  the  details  of  their 
pictures.  I  am  not  aware  that  this  was  ever  the 
case  with  Goethe ;  I  think  it  was  not,  for  as  a  rule 
the  greater  the  poet,  the  more  correct  and  truthful 
will  be  his  specifications.  It  is  the  lesser  poets 
who  trip  most  upon  their  facts.  Thus  a  New  Eng- 
land poet  speaks  of  "plucking  the  apple  from  the 
pine,"  as  if  the  pineapple  grew  upon  the  pine-tree. 
A  Western  poet  sings  of  the  bluebird  in  a  strain  in 
which  every  feature  and  characteristic  of  the  bird 
is  lost;  not  one  trait  of  the  bird  is  faithfully  set 
down.  When  the  robin  and  the  swallow  come,  he 
says,  the  bluebird  hies  him  to  some  mossy  old 
wood,  where,  amid  the  deep  seclusion,  he  pours  out 
his  song. 


80  PEPACTON 

In  a  poem  by  a  well-known  author  in  one  of  the 
popular  journals,  a  hummingbird's  nest  is  shown 
the  reader,  and  it  has  blue  eggs  in  it.  A  more 
cautious  poet  would  have  turned  to  Audubon  or 
Wilson  before  venturing  upon  such  a  statement. 
But  then  it  was  necessary  to  have  a  word  to  rhyme 
with  "view,"  and  what  could  be  easier  than  to 
make  a  white  egg  "blue  "?  Again,  one  of  our  later 
poets  has  evidently  confounded  the  hummingbird 
with  that  curious  parody  upon  it,  the  hawk  or 
sphinx  moth,  as  in  his  poem  upon  the  subject  he 
has  hit  off  exactly  the  habits  of  the  moth,  or, 
rather,  his  creature  seems  a  cross  between  the  moth 
and  the  bird,  as  it  has  the  habits  of  the  one  and 
the  plumage  of  the  other.  The  time  to  see  the 
hummingbird,  he  says,  is  after  sunset  in  the  summer 
gloaming;  then  it  steals  forth  and  hovers  over  the 
flowers,  etc.  Now,  the  hummingbird  is  eminently 
a  creature  of  the  sun  and  of  the  broad  open  day, 
and  I  have  never  seen  it  after  sundown,  while  the 
moth  is  rarely  seen  except  at  twilight.  It  is  much 
smaller  and  less  brilliant  than  the  hummingbird; 
but  its  flight  and  motions  are  so  nearly  the  same 
that  a  poet,  with  his  eye  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling, 
might  easily  mistake  one  for  the  other.  It  is  but 
a  small  slip  in  such  a  poet  as  poor  George  Arnold, 
when  he  makes  the  sweet-scented  honeysuckle  bloom 
for  the  bee,  for  surely  the  name  suggests  the  bee, 
though  in  fact  she  does  not  work  upon  it;  but  what 
shall  we  say  of  the  Kansas  poet,  who,  in  his  pub- 
lished volume,  claims  both  the  yew  and  the  night- 


NATURE    AND   THE    POETS  8] 

ingale  for  his  native  State  ?  Or  of  a  Massachusetts 
poet,  who  finds  the  snowdrop  and  the  early  primrose 
blooming  along  his  native  streams,  with  the  orchis 
and  the  yellow  violet,  and  makes  the  blackbird  con- 
spicuous among  New  England  songsters  ?  Our  ordi- 
nary yew  is  not  a  tree  at  all,  but  a  low  spreading 
evergreen  shrub  that  one  may  step  over;  and  as  for 
the  nightingale,  if  they  have  the  mockingbird  in 
Kansas,  they  can  very  well  do  without  him.  We 
have  several  varieties  of  blackbirds,  it  is  true;  but 
when  an  American  poet  speaks  in  a  general  way  of 
the  blackbird  piping  or  singing  in  a  tree,  as  he 
would  speak  of  a  robin  or  a  sparrow,  the  suggestion 
or  reminiscence  awakened  is  always  that  of  the 
blackbird  of  English  poetry. 

"  In  days  when  daisies  deck  the  ground, 
And  blackbirds  whistle  clear, 
With  honest  joy  our  hearts  will  bound 
To  see  the  coining  year  "  — 

sings  Burns.  I  suspect  that  the  English  reader  of 
even  some  of  Emerson's  and  Lowell's  poems  would 
infer  that  our  blackbird  was  identical  with  the  Brit- 
ish species.      I  refer  to  these  lines  of  Emerson :  — 

"  Where  arches  green  the  livelong  day 
Echo  the  blackbirds'  roundelay;" 

and  to  these  lines  from  Lowell's  "Rosaline:  n  — 

"A  blackbird  whistling  overhead 
Thrilled  through  my  brain;" 

and  again  these  from  "The  Fountain  of  Youth:  "  — 

"  'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted; 
By  no  sadder  spirit 
Than  blackbirds  and  thrushes 


82  PEPACTOX 

That  whistle  to  cheer  it, 
All  clay  in  the  bushes." 

The  blackbird,  of  the  English  poets  is  like  our 
robin  in  everything  except  color.  He  is  familiar, 
hardy,  abundant,  thievish,  and  his  habits,  manners, 
and  song  recall  our  bird  to  the  life.  Our  own  native 
blackbirds,  the  crow  blackbird,  the  rusty  grackle, 
the  cowbird,  and  the  red-shouldered  starling,  are  not 
songsters,  even  in  the  latitude  allowable  to  poets; 
neither  are  they  whistlers,  unless  we  credit  them 
with  a  "split-whistle,"  as  Thoreau  does.  The  two 
first  named  have  a  sort  of  musical  cackle  and  gurgle 
in  spring  (as  at  times  both  our  crow  and  jay  have), 
which  is  very  pleasing,  and  to  which  Emerson  aptly 
refers  in  these  lines  from  "May-Day:  "  — 

"  The  blackbirds  make  the  maples  ring 
With  social  cheer  and  jubilee  "  — 

but  it  is  not  a  song.  The  note  of  the  starling  in 
the  trees  and  alders  along  the  creeks  and  marshes  is 
better  calculated  to  arrest  the  attention  of  the  casual 
observer;  but  it  is  far  from  being  a  song  or  a  whis- 
tle like  that  of  the  European  blackbird,  or  our 
robin.  Its  most  familiar  call  is  like  the  word 
"bazique,"  "baziqite,"  but  it  has  a  wild  musical 
note  which  Emerson  has  embalmed  in  this  line :  — 
"  The  redwing  flutes  his  o-ka-lee." 

Here  Emerson  discriminates;  there  is  no  mistaking 
his  blackbird  this  time  for  the  European  species, 
though  it  is  true  there  is  nothing  fluty  or  flute-like 
in  the  redwing's  voice.  The  flute  is  mellow,  while 
the  "o-ka-lee"  of  the  starling  is  strong  and  sharply 


NATUKE    AND    THE    POETS  83 

accented.  The  voice  of  the  thrushes  (and  our  robin 
and  the  European  blackbird  are  thrushes)  is  flute- 
like.  Hence  the  aptness  of  this  line  of  Tenny- 
son :  — 

"  The  mellow  ouzel  fluted  in  the  elm,"  — 

the    blackbird    being   the    ouzel,    or   ouzel-cock,    as 

Shakespeare  calls  him. 

In  the  line  which  precedes  this,    Tennyson  has 

stamped  the  cuckoo :  — 

"  To  left  and  right, 
The  cuckoo  told  his  name  to  all  the  hills." 

The  cuckoo  is  a  bird  that  figures  largely  in  English 
poetry,  but  he  always  has  an  equivocal  look  in 
American  verse,  unless  sharply  discriminated.  We 
have  a  cuckoo,  but  he  is  a  great  recluse;  and  I  am 
sure  the  poets  do  not  know  when  he  comes  or  goes, 
while  to  make  him  sing  familiarly  like  the  British 
species,  as  I  have  known  at  least  one  of  our  poets  to 
do,  is  to  come  very  wide  of  the  mark.  Our  bird  is 
as  solitary  and  joyless  as  the  most  veritable  ancho- 
rite. He  contributes  nothing  to  the  melody  or 
gayety  of  the  season.  He  is,  indeed,  known  in  some 
sections  as  the  "rain-crow;  "  but  I  presume  that  not 
one  person  in  ten  of  those  who  spend  their  lives  in 
the  country  has  ever  seen  or  heard  him.  He  is 
like  the  showy  orchis,  or  the  ladies '-slipper,  or  the 
shooting  star  among  plants,  —  a  stranger  to  all  but 
the  few;  and  when  an  American  poet  says  cuckoo, 
he  must  say  it  with  such  specifications  as  to  leave 
no  doubt  what  cuckoo  he  means,  as  Lowell  does  in 
his  "Nightingale  in  the  Study:  " — 


84  PEPACTOX 

"  And,  hark,  the  cuckoo,  weatherwise, 
Still  hiding  farther  onward,  wooes  you." 

In  like  manner  the  primrose  is  an  exotic  in 
American  poetry,  to  say  nothing  of  the  snowdrop 
and  the  daisy.  Its  prominence  in  English  poetry 
can  be  understood  when  we  remember  that  the 
plant  is  so  abundant  in  England  as  to  be  almost  a 
weed,  and  that  it  comes  early  and  is  very  pretty. 
Cowslip  and  oxlip  are  familiar  names  of  varieties  of 
the  same  plant,  and  they  bear  so  close  a  resemblance 
that  it  is  hard  to  tell  them  apart.  Hence  Tenny- 
son, in  "The  Talking  Oak:  "  — 

"  As  cowslip  unto  oxlip  is, 
So  seems  she  to  the  boy." 

Our  familiar  primrose  is  the  evening  primrose,  —  a 
rank,  tall  weed  that  blooms  with  the  mullein  in  late 
summer.  Its  small,  yellow,  slightly  fragrant  blos- 
soms open  only  at  night,  but  remain  open  during 
the  next  day.  By  cowslip,  our  poets  and  writers 
generally  mean  the  yellow  marsh  marigold,  which 
belongs  to  a  different  family  of  plants,  but  which, 
as  a  spring  token  and  a  pretty  flower,  is  a  very  good 
substitute  for  the  cowslip.  Our  real  cowslip,  the 
shooting  star,  is  very  rare,  and  is  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  native  flowers.  I  believe  it  is  not 
found  north  of  Pennsylvania.  I  have  found  it  in 
a  single  locality  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
the  day  is  memorable  upon  which  I  first  saw  its 
cluster  of  pink  flowers,  with  their  recurved  petals 
cleaving  the  air.  I  do  not  know  that  it  has  ever 
been  mentioned  in  poetry. 


NATURE   AND   THE   POETS  85 

Another  flower,  which  I  suspect  our  poets  see 
largely  through  the  medium  of  English  literature 
and  invest  with  borrowed  charms,  is  the  violet. 
The  violet  is  a  much  more  winsome  and  poetic 
flower  in  England  than  it  is  in  this  country,  for 
the  reason  that  it  comes  very  early  and  is  sweet- 
scented;  our  common  violet  is  not  among  the  ear- 
liest flowers,  and  it  is  odorless.  It  affects  sunny 
slopes,  like  the  English  flower;  yet  Shakespeare 
never  could  have  made  the  allusion  to  it  which  he 
makes  to  his  own  species  in  these  lines :  — 

"  That  strain  again!  it  had  a  dying  fall: 
Oh!  it  came  o'er  ray  ear  like  the  sweet  south 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets, 
Stealing  and  giving  odor," 

or  lauded  it  as 

"Sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes, 
Or  Cytherea's  breath." 

Our  best  known  sweet-scented  violet  is  a  small, 
white,  lilac-veined  species  (not  yellow,  as  Bryant 
has  it  in  his  poem),  that  is  common  in  wet,  out-of- 
the-way  places.  Our  common  blue  violet  —  the 
only  species  that  is  found  abundantly  everywhere 
in  the  North  —  blooms  in  May,  and  makes  bright 
many  a  grassy  meadow  slope  and  sunny  nook. 
Yet,  for  all  that,  it  does  not  awaken  the  emotion  in 
one  that  the  earlier  and  more  delicate  spring  flowers 
do,  — the  hepatica,  say,  with  its  shy  wood  habits,  its 
pure,  infantile  expression,  and  at  times  its  delicate 
perfume;  or  the  houstonia,  — "innocence,"  —  fleck- 
ing or  streaking  the  cold  spring  earth  with  a  milky 


86  PEPACTON 

way  of  minute  stars ;  or  the  trailing  arbutus,  sweeter 
scented  than  the  English  violet,  and  outvying  in 
tints  Cytherea's  or  any  other  blooming  goddess's 
cheek.  Yet  these  flowers  have  no  classical  associa- 
tions, and  are  consequently  far  less  often  upon  the 
lips  of  our  poets  than  the  violet. 

To  return  to  birds,  another  dangerous  one  for  the 
American  poet  is  the  lark,  and  our  singers  generally 
are  very  shy  of  him.  The  term  has  been  applied 
very  loosely  in  this  country  to  both  the  meadow- 
lark  and  the  bobolink,  yet  it  is  pretty  generally 
understood  now  that  we  have  no  genuine  skylark 
east  of  the  Mississippi.  Hence  I  am  curious  to 
know  what  bird  Bayard  Taylor  refers  to  when  he 
speaks  in  his  "  Spring  Pastoral  "  of 

"Larks  responding  aloft  to  the  mellow  flute  of  the  bluebird." 
Our  so-called  meadowlark  is  no  lark  at  all,  but  a 
starling,  and  the  titlark  and  shore  lark  breed  and 
pass  the  summer  far  to  the  north,    and  are  never 
heard  in  song  in  the  United  States.1 

The  poets  are  entitled  to  a  pretty  free  range,  but 
they  must  be  accurate  when  they  particularize. 
We  expect  them  to  see  the  fact  through  their  imagi- 
nation,  but  it  must  still  remain  a  fact ;  the  medium 
must  not  distort  it  into  a  lie.  When  they  name  a 
flower  or  a  tree  or  a  bird,  whatever  halo  of  the  ideal 
they  throw  around  it,  it  must  not  be  made  to  belie 

1  The  shore  lark  has  changed  its  habits  in  this  respect  of  late 
years.  It  now  breeds  regularly  on  my  native  hills  in  Delaware 
County,  New  York,  and  may  be  heard  in  full  song  there  from 
April  to  June  or  later. 


NATURE   AND   THE   POETS  87 

the  botany  or  the  natural  history.      I  doubt  if  you 

can  catch  Shakespeare  transgressing  the  law  in  this 

respect,  except  where  he  followed  the  superstition 

and  the  imperfect  knowledge  of  his  time,  as  in  his 

treatment  of  the  honey-bee.     His  allusions  to  nature 

are  always  incidental  to  his  main  purpose,  but  they 

reveal  a  careful  and  loving  observer.      For  instance, 

how  are  fact  and  poetry  wedded  in  this  passage,  put 

into  the  mouth  of  Banquo !  — 

"  This  guest  of  summer, 
The  temple-haunting  martlet,  does  approve, 
By  his  loved  masonry  that  the  heaven's  breath 
Smells  wooingly  here :  no  jutty,  frieze, 
Buttress,  nor  coign  of  vantage,  but  this  bird 
Hath  made  his  pendent  bed  and  procreant  cradle: 
Where  they  most  breed  and  haunt,  I  have  observed, 
The  air  is  delicate." 

Nature  is  of  course  universal,  but  in  the  same 
sense  is  she  local  and  particular,  —  cuts  every  suit 
to  fit  the  wearer,  gives  every  land  an  earth  and  sky 
of  its  own,  and  a  flora  and  fauna  to  match.  The 
poets  and  their  readers  delight  in  local  touches. 
We  have  both  the  hare  and  the  rabbit  in  America, 
but  this  line  from  Thomson's  description  of  a  sum- 
mer morning,  — 
"And  from  the  bladed  field  the  fearful  hare  limps  awkward,"  — 

or  this  from  Beattie,  — 

"Through  rustling  corn  the  hare  astonished  sprang"  — 

would  not  apply  with  the  same  force  in  Xew  Eng- 
land, because  our  hare  is  never  found  in  the  fields, 
but  in  dense,  remote  woods.  In  England  both 
hares  and  rabbits  abound  to  such  an  extent  that  in 


88  PEPACTON 

places  the  fields  and  meadows  swarm  with  them, 
and  the  ground  is  undermined  by  their  burrows,  till 
they  become  a  serious  pest  to  the  farmer,  and  are 
trapped  in  vast  numbers.  The  same  remark  applies 
to  this  from  Tennyson :  — 

"From  the  woods 
Came  voices  of  the  well-contented  doves." 

Doves  and  wood-pigeons  are  almost  as  abundant  in 
England  as  hares  and  rabbits,  and  are  also  a  serious 
annoyance  to  the  farmer;  while  in  this  country  the 
dove  and  pigeon  are  much  less  marked  and  perma- 
nent  features   in   our   rural  scenery,  —  less  perma- 
nent,   except   in   the   case   of   the   mourning   dove, 
which  is  found  here  and  there  the  season  through; 
and  less  marked,    except  when  the  hordes   of   the 
passenger  pigeon  once   in  a  decade   or  two  invade 
the  land,  rarely  tarrying  longer  than  the  bands  of 
a  foraging  army.      I  hardly  know  what  Trowbridge 
means   by   the   "wood-pigeon"   in   his   midsummer 
poem,  for,   strictly  speaking,   the  wood-pigeon  is  a 
European  bird,  and  a  very  common  one  in  England. 
But  let  me  say  here,  however,  that  Trowbridge,  as 
a  rule,   keeps  very  close  to  the  natural  history  of 
his  own  country  when  he  has  occasion  to  draw  mate- 
rial from  this  source,  and  to  American  nature  gen- 
erally.     You    will    find    in    his    poems     the    wood 
pewee,    the    bluebird,    the    oriole,    the    robin,    the 
grouse,    the   kingfisher,    the   chipmunk,    the   mink, 
the  bobolink,    the  wood  thrush,    etc.,    all  in  their 
proper  places.      There  are  few  bird-poems  that  com- 
bine so  much  good  poetry  and  good  natural  history 


NATURE    AND   THE    POETS  89 

as  his  "Pewee."  Here  we  have  a  glimpse  of  the 
catbird :  — 

"  In  the  alders,  dank  with  noonday  dews, 
The  restless  catbird  darts  and  mews;" 

here,  of  the  cliff  swallow :  — 

"  In  the  autumn,  when  the  hollows 
All  are  rilled  with  flying  leaves 
And  the  colonies  of  swallows 

Quit  the  quaintly  stuccoed  eaves." 

Only  the  dates  are  not  quite  right.  The  swallows 
leave  their  nests  in  July,  which  is  nearly  three 
months  before  the  leaves  fall.  The  poet  is  also  a 
little  unfaithful  to  the  lore  of  his  boyhood  when  he 
says 

"The  partridge  beats  his  throbbing  drum  " 

in  midsummer.  As  a  rule,  the  partridge  does  not 
drum  later  than  June,  except  fitfully  during  the 
Indian  summer,  while  April  and  May  are  his  favor- 
ite months.  And  let  me  say  here,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  poets  who  do  not  go  to  the  woods,  that  the 
partridge  does  not  always  drum  upon  a  log;  he 
frequently  drums  upon  a  rock  or  a  stone  wall,  if  a 
suitable  log  be  not  handy,  and  no  ear  can  detect 
the  difference.  His  drum  is  really  his  own  proud 
breast,  and  beneath  his  small  hollow  wings  gives 
forth  the  same  low,  mellow  thunder  from  a  rock  as 
from  a  log.  Bryant  has  recognized  this  fact  in  one 
of  his  poems. 

Our  poets  are  quite  apt  to  get  ahead  or  behind 
the  season  with  their  flowers  and  birds.  It  is  not 
often  that  we  catch  such  a  poet  as  Emerson  napping. 
He  knows  nature,  and  he  knows  the  New  England 


90  PEPACTON 

fields  and  woods  as  few  poets  do.  One  may  study 
our  flora  and  fauna  in  his  pages.  He  puts  in  the 
moose  and  the  "surly  bear,"  and  makes  the  latter 
rhyme  with  "  woodpecker  " :  — 

"  He  saw  beneath  dim  aisles,  in  odorous  beds, 
The  slight  Linnaea  hang  its  twin-born  heads. 

He  heard,  when  in  the  grove,  at  intervals, 
With  sudden  roar  the  aged  pine-tree  falls,  — 
One  crash,  the  death-hymn  of  the  perfect  tree, 
Declares  the  close  of  its  green  century." 

"  They  led  me  through  the  thicket  damp, 
Through  brake  and  fern,  the  beavers'  camp." 

"  He  saw  the  partridge  drum  in  the  woods ; 
He  heard  the  woodcock's  evening  hymn; 
He  found  the  tawny  thrushes'  broods; 
And  the  shy  hawk  did  wait  for  him." 

His  "Titmouse"  is  studied  in  our  winter  woods, 
and  his  "Humble-Bee"  in  our  summer  fields.  He 
has  seen  farther  into  the  pine-tree  than  any  other 
poet;  his  "May-Day"  is  full  of  our  spring  sounds 
and  tokens;  he  knows  the  "punctual  birds,"  and 
the  "herbs  and  simples  of  the  wood:  "  — 

"  Ptue,  cinque-foil,  gill,  vervain,  and  agrimony, 
Blue-vetch,  and  trillium,  hawk-weed,  sassafras, 
Milk-Aveeds  and  murky  brakes,  quaint  pipes  and  sun-dew." 

Here  is  a  characteristic  touch :  — 

"  A  woodland  walk, 
A  quest  of  river-grapes,  a  mocking  thrush, 
A  wild  rose,  a  rock-loving  columbine, 
Salve  my  worst  wounds." 

That  "  rock-loving  columbine  ';  is  better  than  Bry- 
ant's "columbines,  in  purple  dressed,"  as  our  flower 
is  not  purple,  but  yellow  and  scarlet.      Yet  Bryant 


NATURE   AND   THE   POETS  91 

set  the  example  to  the  poets  that  have  succeeded 
him  of  closely  studying  Nature  as  she  appears  under 
our  own  skies. 

I  yield  to  none  in  my  admiration  of  the  sweetness 
and  simplicity  of  his  poems  of  nature,  and  in  gen- 
eral of  their  correctness  of  observation.  They  are 
tender  and  heartfelt,  and  they  touch  chords  that  no 
other  poet  since  Wordsworth  has  touched  with  so 
firm  a  hand.  Yet  he  was  not  always  an  infallible 
observer;  he  sometimes  tripped  upon  his  facts,  and 
at  other  times  he  deliberately  moulded  them,  adding 
to,  or  cutting  off,  to  suit  the  purposes  of  his  verse. 
I  will  cite  here  two  instances  in  which  his  natural 
history  is  at  fault.  In  his  poem  on  the  bobolink 
he  makes  the  parent  birds  feed  their  young  with 
"seeds,"  whereas,  in  fact,  the  young  are  fed  exclu- 
sively upon  insects  and  worms.  The  bobolink  is 
an  insectivorous  bird  in  the  North,  or  until  its 
brood  has  flown,  and  a  granivorous  bird  in  the 
South. 

In  his  "Evening  Revery  "  occur  these  lines:  — 

"  The  mother  bird  hath  broken  for  her  brood 
Their  prison  shells,  or  shoved  them  from  the  nest, 
Plumed  for  their  earliest  flight." 

It  is  not  a  fact  that  the  mother  bird  aids  her 
offspring  in  escaping  from  the  shell.  The  young  of 
all  birds  are  armed  with  a  small  temporary  horn  or 
protuberance  upon  the  upper  mandible,  and  they 
are  so  placed  in  the  shell  that  this  point  is  in  imme- 
diate contact  with  its  inner  surface;  as  soon  as  they 
are   fully  developed   and  begin  to  struggle  to  free 


92  PEPACTON 

themselves,  the  horny  growth  "pips"  the  shell. 
Their  efforts  then  continue  till  their  prison  walls 
are  completely  sundered  and  the  bird  is  free.  This 
process  is  rendered  the  more  easy  by  the  fact  that 
toward  the  last  the  shell  becomes  very  rotten;  the 
acids  that  are  generated  by  the  growing  chick  eat  it 
and  make  it  brittle,  so  that  one  can  hardly  touch 
a  fully  incubated  bird's  egg  without  breaking  it. 
To  help  the  young  bird  forth  would  insure  its 
speedy  death.  It  is  not  true,  either,  that  the  par- 
ent shoves  its  young  from  the  nest  when  they  are 
fully  fledged,  except  possibly  in  the  case  of  some 
of  the  swallows  and  of  the  eagle.  The  young  of 
all  our  more  common  birds  leave  the  nest  of  their 
own  motion,  stimulated  probably  by  the  calls  of  the 
parents,  and  in  some  cases  by  the  withholding  of 
food  for  a  longer  period  than  usual. 

As  an  instance  where  Bryant  warps  the  facts  to 
suit  his  purpose,  take  his  poems  of  the  "Yellow 
Violet"  and  "The  Fringed  Gentian."  Of  this  last 
flower  he  says :  — 

"  Thou  waitest  late  and  com'st  alone, 
When  woods  are  bare  and  birds  are  flown, 
And  frosts  and  shortening  days  portend 
The  aged  year  is  near  his  end." 

The  fringed  gentian  belongs  to  September,  and, 
when  the  severer  frosts  keep  away,  it  runs  over 
into  October.  But  it  does  not  come  alone  and  the 
woods  are  not  bare.  The  closed  gentian  comes  at  the 
same  time,  and  the  blue  and  purple  asters  are  in  all 
their  glory.     Goldenrod,  turtle-head,  and  other  fall 


NATURE   AND   THE    POETS  93 

flowers  also  abound.      When   the  woods  are   bare, 

which  does  not  occur  in  New  England  till  in  or 

near  November,  the  fringed  gentian  has  long  been 

dead.      It  is  in  fact  killed  by  the  first  considerable 

frost.      No,  if  one  were  to  go  botanizing,  and  take 

Bryant's  poem  for  a  guide,  he  would  not  bring  home 

any  fringed  gentians  with  him.      The  only  flower 

he  would   find  would   be  the  witch-hazel.      Yet  I 

never  see  this  gentian  without  thinking  of  Bryant's 

poem,  and  feeling  that  he  has  brought  it  immensely 

nearer  to  us. 

Bryant's  poem  of  the  "Yellow  Violet"  has  all 

his  accustomed  simplicity  and  pensiveness,  but  his 

love  for  the  flower  carries  him  a  little  beyond  the 

facts;  he  makes  it  sweet-scented,  — 

"  Thy  faint  perfume 
Alone  is  in  the  virgin  air  ; " 

and  he  makes  it  the  first  flower  of  spring.  I  have 
never  been  able  to  detect  any  perfume  in  the  yel- 
low species  (Viola  rotundifolia).  This  honor  be- 
longs alone  to  our  two  white  violets,  Viola  blanda 
and  Viola  Canadensis. 

Neither  is  it  quite  true  that 

"  Of  all  her  train,  the  hands  of  Spring 
First  plant  thee  in  the  watery  mould." 

Now  it  is  an  interesting  point  which  really  is  our 
first  spring  flower.  Which  comes  second  or  third 
is  of  less  consequence,  but  which  everywhere  and 
in  all  seasons  comes  first;  and  in  such  a  case  the 
poet  must  not  place  the  honor  where  it  does  not 
belong.    I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that,  through- 


94  PEPACTON 

out  the  Middle  and  New  England  States,  the  hepa- 

tica    is   the  first  spring  flower.1     It  is  some  days 

ahead    of    all    others.      The    yellow   violet   belongs 

only  to  the  more  northern  sections,  —  to  high,  cold, 

beechen  woods,   where   the   poet   rightly  places  it; 

but  in  these  localities,  if  you  go  to  the  spring  woods 

every  day,   you  will   gather   the   hepatica   first.      I 

have   also   found   the   claytonia   and  the  colt's-foot 

first.      In  a  poem  called  "The  Twenty- Seventh  of 

March"  Bryant  places  both  the  hepatica  and  the 

arbutus  before  it :  — 

"  Within  the  woods 
Tufts  of  ground-laurel,  creeping  underneath 
The  leaves  of  the  last  summer,  send  their  sweets 
Upon  the  chilly  air,  and  by  the  oak, 
The  squirrel  cups,  a  graceful  company, 
Hide  in  their  bells,  a  soft  aerial  blue  "  — 

ground-laurel  being  a  local  name  for  trailing  ar- 
butus, called  also  mayflower,  and  squirrel-cups  for 
hepatica,  or  liver-leaf.  But  the  yellow  violet  may 
rightly  dispute  for  the  second  place. 

In  "The  Song  of  the  Sower"  our  poet  covers  up 
part  of  the  truth  with  the  grain.  The  point  and 
moral  of  the  song  he  puts  in  the  statement,  that  the 
wheat  sown  in  the  fall  lies  in  the  ground  till  spring 
before  it  germinates;  when,  in  fact,  it  sprouts  and 
grows  and  covers  the  ground  with  "emerald  blades'1 
in  the  fall :  — 

"  Fling  wide  the  generous  grain ;  we  fling 
O'er  the  dark  mould  the  green  of  spring. 
For  thick  the  emerald  blades  shall  grow, 
When  first  the  March  winds  melt  the  snow, 

1  Excepting  of  course,  the  skunk-cabbage. 


NATURE    AND    THE    POETS  95 

And  to  the  sleeping  flowers,  below, 
The  early  bluebirds  sing. 

Brethren,  the  sower's  task  is  done. 

The  seed  is  in  its  winter  bed. 

Now  let  the  dark-brown  mould  be  spread, 

To  hide  it  from  the  sun, 
And  leave  it  to  the  kindly  care 
Of  the  still  earth  and  brooding  air, 
As  when  the  mother,  from  her  breast, 
Lays  the  hushed  babe  apart  to  rest, 
And  shades  its  eyes  and  waits  to  see 
How  sweet  its  waking  smile  will  be. 
The  tempest  now  may  smite,  the  sleet 
All  night  on  the  drowned  furrow  beat, 
And  winds  that,  from  the  cloudy  hold 
Of  winter,  breathe  the  bitter  cold, 
Stiffen  to  stone  the  mellow  mould, 

Yet  safe  shall  lie  the  wheat; 
Till,  out  of  heaven's  unmeasured  blue, 

Shall  walk  again  the  genial  year, 
To  wake  with  warmth  and  nurse  with  dew 

The  germs  we  lay  to  slumber  here." 

Of  course  the  poet  was  not  writing  an  agricultu- 
ral essay,  yet  one  does  not  like  to  feel  that  he  was 
obliged  to  ignore  or  sacrifice  any  part  of  the  truth 
to  build  up  his  verse.  One  likes  to  see  him  keep 
within  the  fact  without  being  conscious  of  it  or 
hampered  by  it,  as  he  does  in  "The  Planting  of  the 
Apple-tree,"  or  in  the  "Lines  to  a  Water-fowl." 

But  there  are  glimpses  of  American  scenery  and 
climate  in  Brj^ant  that  are  unmistakable,  as  in  these 
lines  from  "Midsummer:  "  — 

"  Look  forth  upon  the  earth  —  her  thousand  plants 
Are  smitten;  even  the  dark,  sun-loving  maize 
Faints  in  the  field  beneath  the  torrid  blaze; 
The  herd  beside  the  shaded  fountain  pants  : 
For  life  is  driven  from  all  the  landscape  brown ; 
The  bird  has  sought  his  tree,  the  snake  his  den, 


96  PEPACTON 

The  trout  floats  dead  in  the  hot  stream,  and  men 
Drop  by  the  sunstroke  in  the  populous  town." 

Here  is  a  touch  of  our  "  heated  term "  when  the 

dogstar  is  abroad  and   the   weather   runs   mad.      I 

regret  the  "trout  floating  dead  in  the  hot  stream," 

because,  if    such   a  thing   ever   has   occurred,    it   is 

entirely   exceptional.      The   trout   in   such  weather 

seek  the  deep  water  and  the  spring  holes,  and  hide 

beneath    rocks   and  willow  banks.      The  following 

lines  would  be  impossible  in  an  English  poem :  — 

"  The  snowbird  twittered  on  the  beechen  bough, 
And  'neath  the  hemlock,  whose  thick  branches  bent 
Beneath  its  bright,  cold  burden,  and  kept  dry 
A  circle,  on  the  earth,  of  withered  leaves, 
The  partridge  found  a  shelter." 

Both  Bryant  and  Longfellow  put  their  spring 
bluebird  in  the  elm,  which  is  a  much  better  place 
for  the  oriole,  — the  elm-loving  oriole.  The  blue- 
bird prefers  a  humbler  perch.  Lowell  puts  him 
upon  a  post  in  the  fence,  which  is  a  characteristic 
attitude :  — 

"  The  bluebird,  shifting  his  light  load  of  song, 
From  post  to  post  along  the  cheerless  fence." 

Emerson  calls  him  "April's  bird,"  and  makes  him 

"fly  before  from  tree  to  tree,"  which  is  also  good. 

But  the  bluebird  is  not  strictly  a  songster  in  the 

sense  in  which  the  song  sparrow  or  the  indigo-bird, 

or  the  English  robin  redbreast,  is;  nor  do  Bryant's 

lines  hit  the  mark :  — 

"  The  bluebird  chants,  from  the  elm's  long  branches, 
A  hymn  to  welcome  the  budding  year." 

Lowell,  again,  is  nearer  the  truth  when  he  speaks  of 


NATURE    AND    THE    POETS  97 

his  "  whiff  of  song. "  All  his  notes  are  call-notes, 
and  are  addressed  directly  to  his  mate.  The  song- 
birds take  up  a  position  and  lift  up  their  voices  and 
sing.  It  is  a  deliberate  musical  performance,  as 
much  so  as  that  of  Nilsson  or  Patti.  The  bluebird, 
however,  never  strikes  an  attitude  and  sings  for  the 
mere  song's  sake.  But  the  poets  are  perhaps  to  be 
allowed  this  latitude,  only  their  pages  lose  rather 
than  gain  by  it.  Nothing  is  so  welcome  in  this 
field  as  characteristic  touches,  a  word  or  a  phrase 
that  fits  this  case  and  no  other.  If  the  bluebird 
chants  a  hymn,  what  does  the  wood  thrush  do? 
Yet  the  bluebird's  note  is  more  pleasing  than  most 
bird-songs;  if  it  could  be  reproduced  in  color,  it 
would  be  the  hue  of  the  purest  sky. 

Longfellow  makes  the  swallow  sing :  — 
"  The  darting  swallows  soar  and  sing; "  — 

which  would  leave  him  no  room  to  describe  the 
lark,  if  the  lark  had  been  about.  Bryant  comes 
nearer  the  mark  this  time :  — 

"  There  are  notes  of  joy  from  the  hang-bird  and  wren, 
And  the  gossip  of  swallows  through  all  the  sky ; " 

so  does  Tennyson  when  he  makes  his  swallow 
"  Cheep  and  twitter  twenty  million  loves; " 

also  Lowell  again  in  this  line :  — 

"  The  thin-winged  swallow  skating  on  the  air;  " 

and  Virgil :  — 

"  Swallows  twitter  on  the  chimney  tops." 
Longfellow  is  perhaps  less  close  and  exact  in  his 
dealings   with    nature    than    any   of  his    compeers, 


98  PEP ACTON 

although  he  has  written  some  fine  naturalistic 
poems,  as  his  "Rain  in  Summer,"  and  others. 
When  his  fancy  is  taken,  he  does  not  always  stop 
to  ask,  Is  this  so?  Is  this  true?  as  when  he 
applies  the  Spanish  proverb,  "There  are  no  birds 
in  last  year's  nests,"  to  the  nests  beneath  the  eaves; 
for  these  are  just  the  last  year's  nests  that  do  con- 
tain birds  in  May.  The  cliff  swallow  and  the  barn 
swallow  always  reoccupy  their  old  nests,  when  they 
are  found  intact;  so  do  some  other  birds.  Again, 
the  hawthorn,  or  whitethorn,  field-fares,  belong  to 
English  poetry  more  than  to  American.  The  ash 
in  autumn  is  not  deep  crimsoned,  but  a  purplish 
brown.  "The  ash  her  purple  drops  forgivingly," 
says  Lowell  in  his  "  Indian-Summer  Reverie." 
Flax  is  not  golden,  lilacs  are  purple  or  white  and 
not  flame-colored,  and  it  is  against  the  law  to  go 
trouting  in  November.  The  pelican  is  not  a  wader 
any  more  than  a  goose  or  a  duck  is,  and  the  golden 
robin  or  oriole  is  not  a  bird  of  autumn.  This 
stanza  from  "The  Skeleton  in  Armor"  is  a  striking 
one:  — 

"  As  with  his  wings  aslant, 
Sails  the  fierce  cormorant, 
Seeking  some  rocky  haunt, 

"With  his  prey  laden, 
So  toward  the  open  main, 
Beating  to  sea  again, 
Through  the  wild  hurricane, 

Bore  I  the  maiden." 

But  unfortunately  the  cormorant  never  does  any- 
thing of  the  kind;  it  is  not  a  bird  of  prey:  it  is 
web-fpoted,  a  rapid  swimmer  and  diver,    and  lives 


NATUKE   AND   THE   POETS  99 

upon  fish,  which  it  usually  swallows  as  it  catches 
them.      Virgil  is  nearer  to  fact  when  he  says : 

"  When  crying  cormorants  forsake  the  sea 
And,  stretching  to  the  covert,  wing  their  way." 

But  cormorant  with  Longfellow  may  stand  for  any 
of  the  large  rapacious  birds,  as  the  eagle  or  the  con- 
dor.     True,  and  yet  the  picture  is  purely  a  fanciful 
one,  as  no  bird  of  prey  sails  with  his  burden;  on 
the  contrary  he  flaps  heavily  and  laboriously,    be- 
cause he  is  always  obliged  to  mount.      The  stress 
of  the  rhyme  and  metre  are  of  course  in  this  case 
very  great,  and  it  is  they,  doubtless,  that  drove  the 
poet  into  this  false  picture  of  a  bird  of  prey  laden 
with  his   quarry.      It  is  an  ungracious  task,    how- 
ever, to  cross-question  the  gentle  Muse  of  Longfel- 
low in  this  manner.      He  is  a  true   poet  if  there 
ever  was  one,   and  the  slips  I  point  out  are  only 
like  an  obscure  feather  or  two  in  the  dove  carelessly 
preened.      The  burnished   plumage  and  the  bright 
hues  hide  them  unless  we  look  sharply. 

Whittier  gets  closer  to  the  bone  of  the  New  Eng- 
land nature.  He  comes  from  the  farm,  and  his 
memory  is  stored  with  boyhood's  wild  and  curious 
lore,  with 

"  Knowledge  never  learned  of  schools, 
Of  the  wild  bee's  morning  chase, 
Of  the  wild  flower's  time  and  place, 
Flight  of  fowl  and  habitude 
Of  the  tenants  of  the  wood; 
How  the  tortoise  bears  his  shell, 
How  the  woodchuck  dig-  his  cell, 
And  the  ground-mole  sinks  his  well; 
How  the  robin  feeds  her  young; 
How  the  oriole's  nest  is  hung; 


100  PEP ACTON 

Where  the  whitest  lilies  blow, 
Where  the  freshest  berries  grow, 
Where  the  ground-nut  trails  its  vine, 
Where  the  wood-grape's  clusters  shine; 
Of  the  black  wasp's  cunning  way, 
Mason  of  his  walls  of  clay, 
And  the  architectural  plans 
Of  gray  hornet  artisans!  " 

The  poet  is  not  as  exact  as  usual  when  he  applies 

the  epithet  "painted"  to  the  autumn  beeches,  as  the 

foliage  of  the  beech  is  the  least  painty  of  all  our 

trees;  nor  when  he  speaks  of 

"Wind-flower  and  violet,  amber  and  white," 

as  neither  of  the  flowers  named  is  amber-colored. 

From    "A   Dream   of   Summer"   the   reader  might 

infer  that  the  fox  shut  up  house  in  the  winter  like 

the  muskrat :  — 

"  The  fox  his  hillside  cell  forsakes, 
The  muskrat  leaves  his  nook, 
The  bluebird  in  the  meadow  brakes 
Is  singing  with  the  brook." 

The  only  one  of  these  incidents  that  is  characteris. 
tic  of  a  January  thaw  in  the  latitude  of  New  Eng- 
land is  the  appearance  of  the  muskrat.  The  fox 
is  never  in  his  cell  in  winter,  except  he  is  driven 
there  by  the  hound,  or  by  soft  or  wet  weather,  and 
the  bluebird  does  not  sing  in  the  brakes  at  any  time 
of  the  year.  A  severe  stress  of  weather  will  drive 
the  foxes  off  the  mountains  into  the  low,  sheltered 
woods  and  fields,  and  a  thaw  will  send  them  back 
again.  In  the  winter  the  fox  sleeps  during  the 
day  upon  a  rock  or  stone  wall,  or  upon  a  snow- 
bank, where  he  can  command  all  the  approaches,  or 
else  prowls  stealthily  through  the  woods. 


NATURE    AND    THE    POETS  101 

But  there  is  seldom  a  false  note  in  any  of  Whit- 
tier's  descriptions  of  rural  sights  and  sounds. 
What  a  characteristic  touch  is  that  in  one  of  his 
"  Mountain  Pictures :  "  — 

"  The  pasture  bars  that  clattered  as  they  fell." 

It  is  the  only  strictly  native,  original,  and  typical 
sound  he  reports  on  that  occasion.  The  bleating  of 
sheep,  the  barking  of  dogs,  the  lowing  of  cattle,  the 
splash  of  the  bucket  in  the  well,  "the  pastoral  cur- 
few of  the  cowbell,"  etc.,  are  sounds  we  have  heard 
before  in  poetry,  but  that  clatter  of  the  pasture 
bars  is  American;  one  can  almost  see  the  waiting, 
ruminating  cows  slowly  stir  at  the  signal,  and  start 
for  home  in  anticipation  of  the  summons.  Every 
summer  day,  as  the  sun  is  shading  the  hills,  the 
clatter  of  those  pasture  bars  is  heard  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land. 

"  Snow-Bound "  is  the  most  faithful  picture  of 
our  Northern  winter  that  has  yet  been  put  into 
poetry.  What  an  exact  description  is  this  of  the 
morning  after  the  storm :  — 

"  We  looked  upon  a  world  unknown, 
On  nothing  we  could  call  our  own. 
Around  the  glistening  wonder  bent 
The  blue  walls  of  the  firmament, 
No  cloud  above,  no  earth  below,  — 
A  universe  of  sky  and  snow!  " 

In  his  little  poem  on  the  mayflower,  Mr.  Sted- 
man  catches  and  puts  in  a  single  line  a  feature  of 
our  landscape  in  spring  that  I  have  never  before 
seen  alluded  to  in  poetry.  I  refer  to  the  second 
line  of  this  stanza :  — 


102  PEPACTON 

"  Fresh  blows  the  breeze  through  hemlock-trees, 
The  fields  are  edged  with  green  below, 
And  naught  but  youth,  and  hope,  and  love 
We  know  or  care  to  know!  " 

It  is  characteristic  of  our  Northern  and  New 
England  fields  that  they  are  "edged  with  green"  in 
spring  long  before  the  emerald  tint  has  entirely 
overspread  them.  Along  the  fences,  especially 
along  the  stone  walls,  the  grass  starts  early;  the 
land  is  fatter  there  from  the  deeper  snows  and  from 
other  causes,  the  fence  absorbs  the  heat,  and  shel- 
ters the  ground  from  the  winds,  and  the  sward 
quickly  responds  to  the  touch  of  the  spring  sun. 

Stedman's  poem  is  worthy  of  his  theme,  and  is 
the  only  one  I  recall  by  any  of  our  well-known 
poets  upon  the  much-loved  mayflower  or  arbutus. 
There  is  a  little  poem  upon  this  subject  by  an 
unknown  author  that  also  has  the  right  flavor.  I 
recall  but  one  stanza :  — 

"  Oft  have  I  walked  these  woodland  ways, 
Without  the  blest  foreknowing, 
That  underneath  the  withered  leaves 
The  fairest  flowers  were  blowing." 

Nature's  strong  and  striking  effects  are  best  ren- 
dered by  closest  fidelity  to  her.  Listen  and  look 
intently,  and  catch  the  exact  effect  as  nearly  as 
you  can.  It  seems  as  if  Lowell  had  done  this  more 
than  most  of  his  brother  poets.  In  reading  his 
poems,  one  wishes  for  a  little  more  of  the  poetic 
unction  (I  refer,  of  course,  to  his  serious  poems; 
his  humorous  ones  are  just  what  they  should  be), 
yet  the  student  of  nature  will  find  many  close-fit- 


NATURE   AND   THE    POETS  103 

ting  phrases  and  keen   observations   in   his   pages, 

and   lines  that  are   exactly,   and  at  the  same  time 

poetically,    descriptive.      He   is   the   only   writer   I 

know  of  who  has  noticed  the  fact  that  the  roots  of 

trees   do  not  look  supple   and   muscular  like   their 

boughs,  but  have  a  stiffened,  congealed  look,  as  of 

a  liquid  hardened. 

"  Their  roots,  like  molten  metal  cooled  in  flowing, 
Stiffened  in  coils  and  runnels  down  the  bank." 

This  is  exactly  the  appearance  the  roots  of  most 
trees,  when  uncovered,  present;  they  flow  out  from 
the  trunk  like  diminishing  streams  of  liquid  metal, 
taking  the  form  of  whatever  they  come  in  contact 
with,  parting  around  a  stone  and  uniting  again 
beyond  it,  and  pushing  their  way  along  with  many 
a  pause  and  devious  turn.  One  principal  office  of 
the  roots  of  a  tree  is  to  gripe,  to  hold  fast  the 
earth:  hence  they  feel  for  and  lay  hold  of  every 
inequality  of  surface;  they  will  fit  themselves  to 
the  top  of  a  comparatively  smooth  rock,  so  as  to 
adhere  amazingly,  and  flow  into  the  seams  and 
crevices  like  metal  into  a  mould. 

Lowell  is  singularly  true  to  the  natural  history 
of  his  own  county.  In  his  "Indian-Summer  Rev- 
erie "  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  hen-hawk,  silently 
sailing  overhead 

"With  watchful,  measuring  eye," 

the  robin  feeding  on  cedar  berries,  and  the  squirrel, 

"On  the  shingly  shagbark's  bough." 

I  do  not  remember  to  have  met  the  "shagbark"  in 
poetry  before,  or  that  gray  lichen-covered  stone  wall 


104  PEPACTON 

which  occurs  farther  along  in  the  same  poem,  and 
which  is  so  characteristic  of  the  older  farms  of 
New  York  and  New  England.  I  hardly  know  what 
the  poet  means  by 

"The  wide-ranked  mowers  wading  to  the  knee," 

as  the  mowers  do  not  wade  in  the  grass  they  are 

cutting,  though  they  might  appear  to  do  so  when 

viewed  athwart  the  standing  grass;  perhaps  this  is 

the  explanation  of  the  line. 

But  this  is  just  what    the   bobolink  does  when 

the  care  of  his  young  begins  to  weigh  upon  him :  — 

"  Meanwhile  that  devil-may-care,  the  bobolink, 
Remembering  duty,  in  mid-quaver  stops 

Just  ere  he  sweeps  o'er  rapture's  tremulous  brink, 
And  'twixt  the  winrows  most  demurely  drops." 

I  do  not  vouch  for  that  dropping  between  the  wind- 
rows, as  in  my  part  of  the  country  the  bobolinks 
flee  before  the  hay-makers,  but  that  sudden  stop- 
ping on  the  brink  of  rapture,  as  if  thoughts  of  his 
helpless  young  had  extinguished  his  joy,  is  charac- 
teristic. 

Another  carefully  studied  description  of  Lowell's 
is  this:  — 

"  The  robin  sings  as  of  old  from  the  limb! 
The  catbird  croons  in  the  lilac-bush ! 
Through  the  dim  arbor,  himself  more  dim, 
Silently  hops  the  hermit  thrush." 

Among  trees  Lowell  has  celebrated  the  oak,  the 

pine,  the  birch;  and  among  flowers,  the  violet  and 

the    dandelion.      The    last,    I    think,    is   the    most 

pleasing  of  these  poems :  — 

"  Dear  common  flower,  that  grow'st  beside  the  way, 
Fringing  the  dusty  road  with  harmless  gold, 
First  pledge  of  blithesome  May." 


NATURE   AND   THE    POETS  105 

The  dandelion  is  indeed,  in  our  latitude,  the  pledge 

of  May.     It  comes  when  the  grass  is  short,  and  the 

fresh  turf  sets  off  its  "ring  of  gold"  with  admirable 

effect;  hence  we  know  the  poet  is  a  month  or  more 

out  of  the  season  when,  in  "Al  Fresco,"  he  makes 

it  bloom  with  the  buttercup  and  the  clover :  — 

"  The  dandelions  and  buttercups 
Gild  all  the  lawn;  the  drowsy  bee 
Stumbles  among  the  clover-tops, 
And  summer  sweetens  all  but  me." 

Of  course  the  dandelion  blooms  occasionally 
throughout  the  whole  summer,  especially  where  the 
grass  is  kept  short,  but  its  proper  season,  when  it 
"gilds  all  the  lawn,"  is,  in  every  part  of  the  coun- 
try, some  weeks  earlier  than  the  tall  buttercup  and 
the  clover.  These  bloom  in  June  in  New  England 
and  New  York,  and  are  contemporaries  of  the  daisy. 
In  the  meadows  and  lawns,  the  dandelion  drops  its 
flower  and  holds  aloft  its  sphere  of  down,  touching 
the  green  surface  as  with  a  light  frost,  long  before 
the  clover  and  the  buttercup  have  formed  their 
buds.  In  "Al  Fresco"  our  poet  is  literally  in 
clover,  he  is  reveling  in  the  height  of  the  season, 
the  full  tide  of  summer  is  sweeping  around  him, 
and  he  has  riches  enough  without  robbing  May  of 
her  dandelions.      Let  him  say,  — 

"  The  daisies  and  the  buttercups 
Gild  all  the  lawn." 

I  smile  as  I  note  that  the  woodpecker  proves  a 
refractory  bird  to  Lowell,  as  well  as  to  Emerson :  — 

Emerson  rhymes  it  with  hear, 
Lowell  rhymes  it  with  hear, 


106  PEPACTOX 

One  makes  it  woodpeckair, 
The  other,  woodpeckear. 

But  its  hammer  is  a  musical  one,  and  the  poets  do 
well  to  note  it.  Our  most  pleasing  drummer  upon 
dry  limbs  among  the  woodpeckers  is  the  yellow- 
bellied.  His  measured,  deliberate  tap,  heard  in  the 
stillness  of  the  primitive  woods,  produces  an  effect 
that  no  bird-song  is  capable  of. 

Tennyson  is  said  to  have  very  poor  eyes,  but 
there  seems  to  be  no  defect  in  the  vision  with 
which  he  sees  nature,  while  he  often  hits  the  nail 
on  the  head  in  a  way  that  would  indicate  the  surest 
sight.  True,  he  makes  the  swallow  hunt  the  bee, 
which,  for  aught  I  know,  the  swallow  may  do  in 
England.  Our  purple  martin  has  been  accused  of 
catching  the  honey-bee,  but  I  doubt  his  guilt.  But 
those  of  our  swallows  that  correspond  to  the  British 
species,  the  barn  swallow,  the  cliff  swallow,  and  the 
bank  swallow,  subsist  upon  very  small  insects.  But 
what  a  clear-cut  picture  is  that  in  the  same  poem 
("The  Poet's  Song"):  — 

"  The  wild  hawk  stood,  with  the  down  on  his  beak, 
And  stared,  with  his  foot  on  the  prey." 

It  takes  a  sure  eye,  too,  to  see 

"  The  landscape  winking  thro'  the  heat  "  — 

or  to  gather  this  image :  — 

"He  has  a  solid  base  of  temperament; 
But  as  the  water-lily  starts  and  slides 
Upon  the  level  in  little  puffs  of  wind, 
Though  anchor'd  to  the  bottom,  such  is  he; " 

or  this :  — 


NATURE   AND   THE    POETS  107 

"Arms  on  which  the  standing  muscle  sloped, 
As  slopes  a  wild  brook  o'er  a  little  stone, 
Running  too  vehemently  to  break  upon  it,"  — 

and  many  other  gems  that  abound  in  his  poems. 
He  does  not  cut  and  cover  in  a  single  line,  so  far 
as  I  have  observed.  Great  caution  and  exact  know- 
ledge underlie  his  most  rapid  and  daring  flights. 
A  lady  told  me  that  she  was  once  walking  with 
him  in  the  fields  when  they  came  to  a  spring  that 
bubbled  up  through  shifting  sands  in  a  very  pretty 
manner,  and  Tennyson,  in  order  to  see  exactly  how 
the  spring  behaved,  got  down  on  his  hands  and 
knees  and  peered  a  long  time  into  the  water.  The 
incident  is  worth  repeating  as  showing  how  intently 
a  great  poet  studies  nature. 

Walt  Whitman  says  he  has  been  trying  for  years 
to  find  a  word  that  would  express  or  suggest  that 
evening  call  of  the  robin.  How  absorbingly  this 
poet  must  have  studied  the  moonlight  to  hit  upon 
this  descriptive  phrase :  — 

"The  vitreous  pour  of  the  full  moon  just  tinged  with  blue; " 

how  long  have  looked  upon    the   carpenter   at  his 

bench  to  have  made  this  poem :  — 

"  The  tongue  of  his  fore-plane  whistles  its  wild  ascending  lisp:  " 

or  how  lovingly  listened  to  the  nocturne  of  the 
mockingbird  to  have  turned  it  into  words  in  "  V 
Word  out  of  the  Sea"  !  Indeed,  no  poet  has  stud- 
ied American  nature  more  closely  than  Whitman 
has,  or  is  more  cautious  in  his  uses  of  it.  How  easy 
are  his  descriptions !  — 


108  PEPACTON 

"Behold  the  daybreak! 

The  little  light  fades  the  immense  and  diaphanous  shadows!" 

"  The  comet  that  came  unannounced 

Out  of  the  north,  flaring  in  heaven." 

"  The  fan-shaped  explosion." 

"  The  slender  and  jagged  threads  of  lightning,  as  sudden  and  fast 
amid  the  din  they  chased  each  other  across  the  sky." 

"  Where  the  heifers  browse  —  where  geese  nip  their  food  with 
short  jerks; 

Where  sundown  shadows  lengthen  over  the  limitless  and  lone- 
some prairie; 

Where  herds  of  buffalo  make  a  crawling  spread  of  the  square 
miles  far  and  near; 

Where  the  hummingbird  shimmers  — where  the  neck  of  the 
long-lived  swan  is  curving  and  winding; 

Where  the  laughing-gull  scoots  by  the  shore  when  she  laughs 
her  near  human  laugh ; 

Where  band-neck' d  partridges  roost  in  a  ring  on  the  ground  with 
their  heads  out." 

Whitman  is  less  local  than  the  New  England  poets, 
and  faces  more  to  the  West.  But  he  makes  him- 
self at  home  everywhere,  and  puts  in  characteristic 
scenes  and  incidents,  generally  compressed  into  a 
single  line,  from  all  trades  and  doings  and  occupa- 
tions, North,  East,  South,  West,  and  identifies 
himself  with  man  in  all  straits  and  conditions  on 
the  continent.  Like  the  old  poets,  he  does  not 
dwell  upon  nature,  except  occasionally  through  the 
vistas  opened  up  by  the  great  sciences,  as  astronomy 
and  geology,  but  upon  life  and  movement  and  per- 
sonality, and  puts  in  a  shred  of  natural  history  here 
and  there,  — the  "twittering  redstart,"  the  spotted 
hawk    swooping    by,    the   oscillating   sea-gulls,    the 


NATURE   AND   THE    POETS  L09 

yellow-crowned  heron,  the  razor- hilled  auk,  the 
lone  wood  duck,  the  migrating  geese,  the  sharp- 
hoofed  moose,  the  mockingbird,  "the  thrush,  the 
hermit,"  etc.,  —  to  help  locate  and  define  his  posi- 
tion. Everywhere  in  nature  Whitman  finds  human 
relations,  human  responsions.  In  entire  consistence 
with  botany,  geology,  science,  or  what  not,  he  en- 
dues his  very  seas  and  woods  with  passion,  more 
than  the  old  hamadryads  or  tritons.  His  fields, 
his  rocks,  his  trees,  are  not  dead  material,  but  liv- 
ing companions.  This  is  doubtless  one  reason  why 
Addington  Symonds,  the  young  Hellenic  scholar  of 
England,  finds  him  more  thoroughly  Greek  than 
any  other  man  of  modern  times. 

Our  natural  history,  and  indeed  all  phases  of  life 
in  this  country,  are  rich  in  materials  for  the  poet 
that  have  yet  hardly  been  touched.  Many  of  our 
most  familiar  birds,  which  are  inseparably  associ- 
ated with  one's  walks  and  recreations  in  the  open 
air,  and  with  the  changes  of  the  seasons,  are  yet 
awaiting  their  poet,  —  as  the  high-hole,  with  his 
golden-shafted  quills  and  loud  continued  spring  call ; 
the  meadowlark,  with  her  crescent-marked  breast 
and  long-drawn,  piercing,  yet  tender  April  and  May 
summons  forming,  with  that  of  the  high-hole,  one 
of  the  three  or  four  most  characteristic  field  sounds 
of  our  spring;  the  happy  goldfinch,  circling  round 
and  round  in  midsummer  with  that  peculiar  undu- 
lating flight  and  calling  per-chick1  -0-pce,  p&r-chick1- 
o^ee,  at  each  opening  and  shutting  of  the  wings, 
or  later  leading  her  plaintive  brood  among  the  this- 


110  PEPACTON 

tie-heads  by  the  roadside;  the  little  indigo- bird, 
facing  the  torrid  sun  of  August  and  singing  through 
all  the  livelong  summer  day;  the  contented  musical 
soliloquy  of  the  vireo,  like  the  whistle  of  a  boy  at 
his  work,  heard  through  all  our  woods  from  May  to 
September :  — 

"  Pretty  green  worm,  where  are  you  ? 
Dusky-winged  moth,  how  fare  you, 
When  wind  and  rain  are  in  the  tree  ? 
Cheeryo,  cheerebly,  chee, 
Shadow  and  sun  one  are  to  me. 
Mosquito  and  gnat,  beware  you, 
Saucy  chipmunk,  how  dare  you 
Climb  to  my  nest  in  the  maple-tree, 
And  dig  up  the  corn 
At  noon  and  at  morn  ? 
Cheeryo,  cheerebly,  chee." 

Or  the  phcebe-bird,  with  her  sweet  April  call  and 
mossy  nest  under  the  bridge  or  woodshed,  or  under 
the  shelving  rocks ;  or  the  brown  thrasher  —  mock- 
ing thrush  —  calling  half  furtively,  half  archly  from 
the  treetop  back  in  the  bushy  pastures:  "Croquet, 
croquet,  hit  it,  hit  it,  come  to  me,  come  to  me, 
tight  it,  tight  it,  you're  out,  you're  out,"  with 
many  musical  interludes;  or  the  chewink,  rustling 
the  leaves  and  peering  under  the  bushes  at  you; 
or  the  pretty  little  oven-bird,  walking  round  and 
round  you  in  the  woods,  or  suddenly  soaring  above 
the  treetops,  and  uttering  its  wild  lyrical  strain; 
or,  farther  south,  the  whistling  redbird,  with  his 
crest  and  military  bearing,  —  these  and  many  others 
should  be  full  of  suggestion  and  inspiration  to  our 
poets.      It  is  only  lately  that  the  robin's  song  has 


NATURE   AND   THE    POETS  111 

been  put  into  poetry.  Nothing  could  be  happiei 
than  this  rendering  of  it  by  a  nameless  singer  in 
"A  Masque  of  Poets:  "  — 

"  When  the  willows  gleam  along  the  brooks, 
And  the  grass  grows  green  in  sunny  nooks, 
In  the  sunshine  and  the  rain 
I  hear  the  robin  in  the  lane 
Singing,  'Cheerily, 
Cheer  up,  cheer  up; 
Cheerily,  cheerily, 
Cheer  up.' 

"  But  the  snow  is  still 
Along  the  walls  and  on  the  hill. 
The  days  are  cold,  the  nights  forlorn, 
For  one  is  here  and  one  is  gone. 
'  Tut,  tut.     Cheerilv, 
Cheer  up,  cheer  up ; 
Cheerily,  cheerily, 
Cheer  up.' 

"  When  spring  hopes  seem  to  wane, 
I  hear  the  joj'ful  strain  — 
A  song  at  night,  a  song  at  morn, 
A  lesson  deep  to  me  is  borne, 
Hearing,  '  Cheerily, 
Cheer  up,  cheer  up ; 
Cheerily,  cheerily, 
Cheer  up.'  " 

The  poetic  interpretation  of  nature,  which  has 
come  to  be  a  convenient  phrase,  and  about  which 
the  Oxford  professor  of  poetry  has  written  a  book, 
is,  of  course,  a  myth,  or  is  to  be  read  the  other 
way.  It  is  the  soul  the  poet  interprets,  not  nature. 
There  is  nothing  in  nature  but  what  the  beholder 
supplies.  Does  the  sculptor  interpret  the  marble 
or  his  own  ideal?  Is  the  music  in  the  instrument, 
or  in  the  soul  of  the  performer  1     Nature  is  a  dead 


112  PEPACTON 

clod  until  you  have  breathed  upon  it  with  your 
genius.  You  commune  with  your  own  soul,  not 
with  woods  or  waters;  they  furnish  the  conditions, 
and  are  what  you  make  them.  Did  Shelley  inter- 
pret the  song  of  the  skylark,  or  Keats  that  of  the 
nightingale?  They  interpreted  their  own  wild, 
yearning  hearts.  The  trick  of  the  poet  is  always 
to  idealize  nature, — to  see  it  subjectively.  You 
cannot  find  what  the  poets  find  in  the  woods  until 
you  take  the  poet's  heart  to  the  woods.  He  sees 
nature  through  a  colored  glass,  sees  it  truthfully, 
but  with  an  indescribable  charm  added,  the  aureole 
of  the  spirit.  A  tree,  a  cloud,  a  bird,  a  sunset, 
have  no  hidden  meaning  that  the  art  of  the  poet  is 
to  unlock  for  us.  Every  poet  shall  interpret  them 
differently,  and  interpret  them  rightly,  because  the 
soul  is  infinite.  Milton's  nightingale  is  not  Cole- 
ridge's; Burns's  daisy  is  not  Wordsworth's;  Emer- 
son's humblebee  is  not  Lowell's;  nor  does  Turner 
see  in  nature  what  Tintoretto  does,  nor  Veronese 
what  Correggio  does.  Nature  is  all  things  to  all 
men.  "We  carry  within  us,"  says  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  "the  wonders  we  find  without."  The 
same  idea  is  daintily  expressed  in  these  tripping 
verses  of  Bryant's:  — 

"  Yet  these  sweet  sounds  of  the  early  season 
And  these  fair  sights  of  its  early  days, 
Are  only  sweet  when  we  fondly  listen, 
And  only  fair  when  we  fondly  gaze. 

"  There  is  no  glory  in  star  or  blossom, 
Till  looked  upon  by  a  loving  eye ; 
There  is  no  fragrance  in  April  breezes, 
Till  breathed  with  joy  as  they  wander  by;  " 


NATURE    AND    THE    POETS  LIS 

and  in  these  lines  of  Lowell :  — 

"What  we  call  Nature,  all  outside  ourselves, 
Is  but  our  own  conceit  of  what  we  see, 
Our  own  reaction  upon  what  we  feel." 

"I  find  my  own  complexion  everywhere." 

Before  either,  Coleridge  had  said :  — 

"  We  receive  but  what  we  give, 
And  in  our  life  alone  doth  Nature  live; 
Ours  is  the  wedding-garment,  ours  the  shroud;" 

and  Wordsworth  had  spoken  of 

"  The  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land, 
The  consecration  and  the  poet's  dream." 

That  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land  is  what 
the  poet  gives  us,  and  is  what  we  mean  by  the 
poetic  interpretation  of  nature.  The  Oxford  pro- 
fessor struggles  against  this  view.  "It  is  not  true," 
he  says,  "  that  nature  is  a  blank,  or  an  unintelligible 
scroll  with  no  meaning  of  its  own  but  that  which 
we  put  into  it  from  the  light  of  our  own  transient 
feelings."  Not  a  blank,  certainly,  to  the  scientist, 
but  full  of  definite  meanings  and  laws,  and  a  store- 
house of  powers  and  economies ;  but  to  the  poet  the 
meaning  is  what  he  pleases  to  make  it,  what  it  pro- 
vokes in  his  own  soul.  To  the  man  of  science  it 
is  thus  and  so,  and  not  otherwise;  but  the  poet 
touches  and  goes,  and  uses  nature  as  a  garment 
which  he  puts  off  and  on.  Hence  the  scientific 
reading  or  interpretation  of  nature  is  the  only  real 
one.  Says  the  Soothsayer  in  "Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra :  "  — 

"In  Nature's  infinite  book  of  secresv  a  little  do  I  read." 


114  PEPACTON 

This  is  science  bowed  and  reverent,  and  speaking 
through  a  great  poet.  The  poet  himself  does  not 
so  much  read  in  nature's  book  —  though  he  does 
this,  too  —  as  write  his  own  thoughts  there ;  Nature 
reads  him,  she  is  the  page  and  he  the  type,  and 
she  takes  the  impression  he  gives.  Of  course  the 
poet  uses  the  truths  of  nature  also,  and  he  estab- 
lishes his  right  to  them  by  bringing  them  home  to 
us  with  a  new  and  peculiar  force,  —  a  quickening  or 
kindling  force.  What  science  gives  is  melted  in 
the  fervent  heat  of  the  poet's  passion,  and  comes 
back  to  us  supplemented  by  his  quality  and  genius. 
He  gives  more  than  he  takes,  always. 


NOTES   BY   THE   WAY 

A   NEW   NOTE    IN   THE   WOODS 

r^HEPvE  is  always  a  new  page  to  be  turned  in 
natural   history,    if   one   is   sufficiently  on  the 
alert.      I  did  not  know  that  the  eagle  celebrated  his 
nuptials  in  the  air  till  one  early  spring  day  I  saw 
a  pair  of  them  fall  from  the  sky  witli  talons  hooked 
together.      They  dropped  a  hundred  feet  or  more, 
in  a  wild  embrace,    their  great  wings  fanning  the 
air,  then  separated  and  mounted  aloft,  tracing  their 
great  circles  against  the  clouds.     "  Watch  and  wait  " 
is    the   naturalist's  sign.      For  years  I   have    been 
trying  to  ascertain  for  a  certainty  the  author  of  that 
fine  plaintive  piping  to  be  heard  more  or  less  fre- 
quently, according  to  the  weather,   in  our  summer 
and  autumn  woods.      It  is  a  note  that  much  resem- 
bles that  of  our  small  marsh  frogs  in  spring, the 

hyla;  it  is  not  quite  so  clear  and  assured,  but  oth- 
erwise much  the  same.  Of  a  very  warm  October 
day  I  have  heard  the  wood  vocal  with  it ;  it  seemed 
to  proceed  from  every  stump  and  tree  about  on.-. 
Ordinarily  it  is  heard  only  at  intervals  throughout 
the  woods.     Approach  never  so  cautiously  the  spot 


116  PEPACTON 

from  which  the  sound  proceeds,  and  it  instantly 
ceases,  and  you  may  watch  for  an  hour  without 
again  hearing  it.  Is  it  a  frog,  I  said,  the  small 
tree-frog,  the  piper  of  the  marshes,  repeating  his 
spring  note,  but  little  changed,  amid  the  trees? 
Doubtless  it  is,  yet  I  must  see  him  in  the  very  act. 
So  I  watched  and  waited,  but  to  no  purpose,  till 
one  day,  while  bee-hunting  in  the  woods,  I  heard 
the  sound  proceed  from  beneath  the  leaves  at  my 
feet.  Keeping  entirely  quiet,  the  little  musician 
presently  emerged,  and,  lifting  himself  up  on  a  small 
stick,  his  throat  palpitated  and  the  plaintive  note 
again  came  forth.  "  The  queerest  frog  ever  I  saw, " 
said  a  youth  who  accompanied  me,  and  whom  I  had 
enlisted  to  help  solve  the  mystery.  ISTo;  it  was  no 
frog  or  toad  at  all,  but  the  small  red  salamander, 
commonly  called  lizard.  The  color  is  not  strictly 
red,  but  a  dull  orange,  variegated  with  minute 
specks  or  spots.  This  was  the  mysterious  piper, 
then,  heard  from  May  till  November  through  all 
our  woods,  sometimes  on  trees,  but  usually  on  or 
near  the  ground.  It  makes  more  music  in  the 
woods  in  autumn  than  any  bird.  It  is  a  pretty, 
inoffensive  creature,  walks  as  awkwardly  as  a  baby, 
and  may  often  be  found  beneath  stones  and  old  logs 
in  the  woods,  where,  buried  in  the  mould,  it  passes 
the  winter.  (I  suspect  there  is  a  species  of  little 
frog  —  Pickering's  hyla1  —  that  also  pipes  occasion- 
ally in  the  woods. )      I  have  discovered,  also,  that 

1  A  frequent  piper  in  the  woods  throughout  the  summer  and 
early  fall. 


NOTES   BY   THE   WAY  1  1  7 

we  have  a  musical  spider.  One  sunny  April  day, 
while  seated  on  the  borders  of  the  woods,  my  atten- 
tion was  attracted  by  a  soft,  uncertain,  purring  sound 
that  proceeded  from  the  dry  leaves  at  my  feet.  On 
investigating  the  matter,  I  found  that  it  was  made 
by  a  busy  little  spider.  Several  of  them  were  trav- 
eling about  over  the  leaves  as  if  in  quest  of  some 
lost  cue  or  secret.  Every  moment  or  two  they 
would  pause,  and  by  some  invisible  means  make  the 
low,  purring  sound  referred  to.  Dr.  J.  A.  Allen 
says  the  common  turtle,  or  land  tortoise,  also  has  a 
note,  —  a  loud,  shrill,  piping  sound.  It  may  yet 
be  discovered  that  there  is  no  silent  creature  in 
nature. 

THE   SAND   HORNET 

I  turned  another  (to  me)  now  page  in  natural 
history,  when,  during  the  past  season,  I  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  sand  wasp  or  hornet.  From 
boyhood  I  had  known  the  black  hornet,  with  his 
large  paper  nest,  and  the  spiteful  yellow- jacket, 
with  his  lesser  domicile,  and  had  cherished  proper 
contempt  for  the  various  indolent  wasps.  Bui  the 
sand  hornet  was  a  new  bird,  —  in  fact,  the  harpy 
eagle  among  insects,  — and  he  made  an  impression. 
While  walking  along  the  road  about  midsummer,  I 
noticed  working  in  the  towpath,  where  the  ground 
was  rather  inclined  to  be  dry  and  sandy,  a  large 
yellow  hornet-like  insect.  It  made  a  hole  the  size 
of  one's  little  finger  in  the  hard,  gravelly  path 
beside  the  roadbed.      When  disturbed,    it  alighted 


118  PEPACTON 

on  the  dirt  and  sand  in  the  middle  of  the  road.  I 
had  noticed  in  my  walks  some  small  bullet-like 
holes  in  the  field  that  had  piqued  my  curiosity,  and 
I  determined  to  keep  an  eye  on  these  insects  of  the 
roadside.  I  explored  their  holes,  and  found  them 
quite  shallow,  and  no  mystery  at  the  bottom  of 
them.  One  morning  in  the  latter  part  of  July, 
walking  that  way,  I  was  quickly  attracted  by  the 
sight  of  a  row  of  little  mounds  of  fine,  freshly  dug 
earth  resting  upon  the  grass  beside  the  road,  a  foot 
or  more  beneath  the  path.  "What  is  this?"  I 
said.  "Mice,  or  squirrels,  or  snakes,"  said  my 
neighbor.  But  I  connected  it  at  once  with  the 
strange  insect  I  had  seen.  Neither  mice  nor  squir- 
rels work  like  that,  and  snakes  do  not  dig.  Above 
each  mound  of  earth  was  a  hole  the  size  of  one's 
largest  finger,  leading  into  the  bank.  While  specu- 
lating about  the  phenomenon,  I  saw  one  of  the  large 
yellow  hornets  I  had  observed,  quickly  enter  one  of 
the  holes.  That  settled  the  query.  While  spade 
and  hoe  were  being  brought  to  dig  him  out,  another 
hornet  appeared,  heavy-laden  with  some  prey,  and 
flew  humming  up  and  down  and  around  the  place 
where  I  was  standing.  I  withdrew  a  little,  when 
he  quickly  alighted  upon  one  of  the  mounds  of 
earth,  and  I  saw  him  carrying  into  his  den  no  less 
an  insect  than  the  cicada  or  harvest-fly.  Then 
another  came,  and  after  coursing  up  and  down  a 
few  times,  disturbed  by  my  presence,  alighted  upon 
a  tree,  with  his  quarry,  to  rest.  The  black  hornet 
will  capture  a  fly,    or  a  small  butterfly,  and,  after 


NOTES    BY   THE   WAY  1  19 

breaking  and  dismembering  it,  will  take  it  to  his 
nest;  but  here  was  this  hornet  carrying  an   insect 
much  larger  than  himself,  and  flying  with  ease  and 
swiftness.      It  was  as  if  a  hawk  should  carry  a  hen, 
or  an  eagle  a  turkey.      I  at  once  proceeded  to  dig 
for  one  of  the  hornets,  and,  after  following  his  hole 
about  three  feet  under  the  footpath  and  to  the  edge 
of  the  roadbed,  succeeded  in  capturing  him  and  re- 
covering  the  cicada.      The   hornet   weighed   fifteen 
grains,   and  the  cicada  nineteen;   but   in   bulk  the 
cicada  exceeded  the  hornet  by  more  than  half.      In 
color,  the  wings  and  thorax,  or  waist,  of  the  hornet, 
were  a  rich  bronze;  the  abdomen  was  black,  with 
three  irregular  yellow  bands;   the   legs  were   large 
and  powerful,  especially  the  third  or  hindmost  pair, 
which  were  much  larger  than  the  others,  and  armed 
with  many  spurs  and  hooks.      In  digging  its  hole 
the  hornet  has  been  seen  at  work  very  early  in  the 
morning.     It  backed  out  with  the  loosened  material, 
like  any  other  animal  under  the  same  circumstance-.  ■ 
holding  and  scraping  back  the  dirt  with  its  legs. 
The    preliminary    prospecting    upon    the    footpath, 
which  I  had  observed,  seems  to  have  been  the  work 
of  the  males,  as  it  was  certainly  of  the  smaller  hor- 
nets, and  the  object  was  doubtless  to  examine  the 
ground,  and  ascertain  if  the  place  was  suitable  for 
nesting.      By  digging  two  or  three  inches  through 
the  hard,  gravelly  surface  of  the  road,  a  line  sandy 
loam  was  discovered,  which  seemed  to  suit  exactly, 
for  in  a  few  days  the  main  shafts  were  all  started 
in  the  greensward,  evidently  upon  the  strength  of 


120  PEPACTON 

the  favorable  report  which  the  surveyors  had  made. 
These  were  dug  by  the  larger  hornets  or  females. 
There  was  but  one  inhabitant  in  each  hole,  and  the 
holes  were  two  to  three  feet  apart.  One  that  we 
examined  had  nine  chambers  or  galleries  at  the  end 
of  it,  in  each  of  which  were  two  locusts,  or  eighteen 
in  all.  The  locusts  of  the  locality  had  suffered 
great  slaughter.  Some  of  them  in  the  hole  or  den 
had  been  eaten  to  a  mere  shell  by  the  larvae  of  the 
hornet.  Under  the  wing  of  each  insect  an  egg  is 
attached;  the  egg  soon  hatches,  and  the  grub  at 
once  proceeds  to  devour  the  food  its  thoughtful 
parent  has  provided.  As  it  grows  it  weaves  itself 
a  sort  of  shell  or  cocoon,  in  which,  after  a  time,  it 
undergoes  its  metamorphosis,  and  comes  out,  I  think, 
a  perfect  insect  toward  the  end  of  summer. 

I  understood  now  the  meaning  of  that  sudden  cry 
of  alarm  I  had  so  often  heard  proceed  from  the 
locust  or  cicada,  followed  by  some  object  falling 
and  rustling  amid  the  leaves ;  the  poor  insect  was 
doubtless  in  the  clutches  of  this  arch  enemy.  A 
number  of  locusts  usually  passed  the  night  on  the 
under  side  of  a  large  limb  of  a  mulberry-tree  near 
by :  early  one  morning  a  hornet  was  seen  to  pounce 
suddenly  upon  one  and  drag  it  over  on  the  top  of 
the  limb;  a  struggle  ensued,  but  the  locust  was 
soon  quieted  and  carried  off.  It  is  said  that  the 
hornet  does  not  sting  the  insect  in  a  vital  part,  — 
for  in  that  case  it  would  not  keep  fresh  for  its 
young,  —  but  introduces  its  poison  into  certain  ner- 
vous ganglia,  the  injury  to  which  has  the  effect  of 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAY  121 

paralyzing  the   victim   and  making  it  incapable  of 
motion,  though  life  remains  for  some  time. 

My  friend  Van,  who  watched  the  hornets  in  my 
absence,  saw  a  fierce  battle  one  day  over  the  right 
of  possession  of  one  of  the  dens.  An  angry,  hum- 
ming sound  was  heard  to  proceed  from  one  of  the 
holes;  gradually  it  approached  the  surface,  until 
the  hornets  emerged  locked  in  each  other's  embrace, 
and  rolled  down  the  little  embankment,  where  the 
combat  was  continued.  Finally  one  released  his 
hold  and  took  up  his  position  in  the  mouth  of  his 
den  (of  course  I  should  say  she  and  her,  as  these 
were  the  queen  hornets),  where  she  seemed  to  chal- 
lenge her  antagonist  to  come  on.  The  other  one 
manoeuvred  about  a  while,  but  could  not  draw  her 
enemy  out  of  her  stronghold;  then  she  clambered 
up  the  bank  and  began  to  bite  and  tear  off  bits  of 
grass,  and  to  loosen  gravel-stones  and  earth,  and  roll 
them  down  into  the  mouth  of  the  disputed  passage. 
This  caused  the  besieged  hornet  to  withdraw  farther 
into  her  hole,  when  the  other  came  down  and  thrust 
in  her  head,  but  hesitated  to  enter.  After  more 
manoeuvring,  the  aggressor  withdrew,  and  began  to 
bore  a  hole  about  a  foot  from  the  one  she  had  tried 
to  possess  herself  of  by  force. 

Besides  the  cicada,  the  sand  hornet  captures 
grasshoppers  and  other  large  insects.  I  have  never 
met  with  it  before  the  present  summer  (1879),  but 
this  year  I  have  heard  of  its  appearance  at  several 
points  along  the  Hudson. 


122  PEPACTON 


THE    SOLITARY    BEE 

If  you  "leave  no  stone  unturned"  in  your  walks 
through  the  fields,  you  may  perchance  discover  the 
abode  of  one  of  our  solitary  bees.  Indeed,  I  have 
often  thought  what  a  chapter  of  natural  history 
might  be  written  on  "  Life  under  a  Stone, "  so  many 
of  our  smaller  creatures  take  refuge  there,  —  ants, 
crickets,  spiders,  wasps,  bumblebees,  the  solitary 
bee,  mice,  toads,  snakes,  newts,  etc.  What  do 
these  things  do  in  a  country  where  there  are  no 
stones  ?  A  stone  makes  a  good  roof,  a  good  shield ; 
it  is  water-proof  and  fire-proof,  and,  until  the  sea- 
son becomes  too  rigorous,  frost- proof,  too.  The 
field  mouse  wants  no  better  place  to  nest  than 
beneath  a  large,  flat  stone,  and  the  bumblebee  is 
entirely  satisfied  if  she  can  get  possession  of.  his  old 
or  abandoned  quarters.  I  have  even  heard  of  a 
swarm  of  hive  bees  going  under  a  stone  that  was 
elevated  a  little  from  the  ground.  After  that,  I 
did  not  marvel  at  Samson's  bees  going  into  the 
carcass  or  skeleton  of  the  lion. 

In  the  woods  one  day  (it  was  in  November)  I 
turned  over  a  stone  that  had  a  very  strange-looking 
creature  under  it,  —  a  species  of  salamander  I  had 
never  before  seen,  the  banded  salamander.  It  was 
five  or  six  inches  long,  and  was  black  and  white  in 
alternate  bands.  It  looked  like  a  creature  of  the 
night,  —  darkness  dappled  with  moonlight,  —  and 
so  it  proved.  I  wrapped  it  up  in  some  leaves  and 
took   it   home    in    my   pocket.      By   day   it   would 


NOTES    BY    THE   WAY  123 

barely  move,  and  could  not  be  stimulated  or  fright- 
ened into  any  degree  of  activity;  but  at  night  it 
was  alert  and  wide  awake.  Of  its  habits  I  know- 
little,  but  it  is  a  pretty  and  harmless  creature. 
Under  another  stone  was  still  another  species,  the 
violet-colored  salamander,  larger,  of  a  dark  plum- 
color,  with  two  rows  of  bright  yellow  spots  down 
its  back.  It  evinced  more  activity  than  its  fellow 
of  the  moon-bespattered  garb.  I  have  also  found 
the  little  musical  red  newt  under  stories,  and  several 
small,  dark  species. 

But  to  return  to  the  solitary  bee.  When  you  go 
a-hunting  of  the  honey-bee,  and  are  in  quest  of  a 
specimen  among  the  asters  or  goldenrod  in  some 
remote  field  to  start  a  line  with,  you  shall  see  how 
much  this  little  native  bee  resembles  her  cousin  of 
the  social  hive.  There  appear  to  be  several  varie- 
ties, but  the  one  I  have  in  mind  is  just  the  size  of 
the  honey-bee,  and  of  the  same  general  form  and 
color,  and  its  manner  among  the  flowers  is  nearly 
the  same.  On  close  inspection,  its  color  proves  to 
be  lighter,  while  the  under  side  of  its  abdomen  is 
of  a  rich  bronze.  The  body  is  also  flatter  and  less 
tapering,  and  the  curve  inclines  upward,  rather  than 
downward.  You  perceive  it  would  be  the  easiesl 
thing  in  the  world  for  the  bee  to  sting  an  enemy 
perched  upon  its  back.  One  variety,  with  a  bright 
buff  abdomen,  is  called  "sweat-bee"  by  the  laborers 
in  the  field,  because  it  alights  upon  their  hands  and 
bare  arms  when  they  are  sweaty, — doubtless  in 
quest  of  salt.      It  builds   its   nest   in   Little  cavities 


124  PEPACTON 

in  rails  and  posts.  But  the  one  with  the  bronze 
or  copper  bottom  builds  under  a  stone.  I  discov- 
ered its  nest  one  day  in  this  wise :  I  was  lying  upon 
the  ground  in  a  field,  watching  a  line  of  honey-bees 
to  the  woods,  when  my  attention  was  arrested  by 
one  of  these  native  bees  flying  about  me  in  a  curi- 
ous, inquiring  way.  When  it  returned  the  third 
time,  I  said,  "That  bee  wants  something  of  me," 
which  proved  to  be  the  case,  for  I  was  lying  upon 
the  entrance  to  its  nest.  On  my  getting  up,  it 
alighted  and  crawled  quickly  home.  I  turned  over 
the  stone,  which  was  less  than  a  foot  across,  when 
the  nest  was  partially  exposed.  It  consisted  of 
four  cells,  built  in  succession  in  a  little  tunnel  that 
had  been  excavated  in  the  ground.  The  cells,  which 
were  about  three  quarters  of  an  inch  long  and  half 
as  far  through,  were  made  of  sections  cut  from  the 
leaf  of  the  maple,  —  cut  with  the  mandibles  of  the 
bee,  which  work  precisely  like  shears.  I  have  seen 
the  bee  at  work  cutting  out  these  pieces.  She 
moves  through  the  leaf  like  the  hand  of  the  tailor 
through  a  piece  of  cloth.  When  the  pattern  is 
detached  she  rolls  it  up,  and,  embracing  it  with  her 
legs,  flies  home  with  it,  often  appearing  to  have  a 
bundle  disproportionately  large.  Each  cell  is  made 
up  of  a  dozen  or  more  pieces:  the  larger  ones,  those 
that  form  its  walls,  like  the  walls  of  a  paper  bag, 
are  oblong,  and  are  turned  down  at  one  end,  so  as 
to  form  the  bottom;  not  one  thickness  of  leaf 
merely,  but  three  or  four  thicknesses,  each  fragment 
of  leaf   lapping   over   another.      When   the   cell   is 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAY  L25 

completed,  it  is  filled  about  two  thirds  full  of  bee- 
bread,  —  the  color  of  that  in  the  comb  in  the  hive, 
but  not  so  dry,  and  having  a  sourish  smell.  Upon 
this  the  egg  is  laid,  and  upon  this  the  young  feed 
when  hatched.  Is  the  paper  bag  now  tied  up? 
No,  it  is  headed  up;  circular  bits  of  leaves  are 
nicely  fitted  into  it  to  the  number  of  six  or  seven. 
They  are  cut  without  pattern  or  compass,  and  yet 
they  are  all  alike,  and  all  exactly  fit.  [ndeed,  the 
construction  of  this  cell  or  receptacle  shows  great 
ingenuity  and  skill.  The  bee  was,  of  course,  unable 
to  manage  a  single  section  of  a  leaf  large  enough, 
when  rolled  up  to  form  it,  and  so  was  obliged  to 
construct  it  of  smaller  pieces,  such  as  she  could 
carry,  lapping  them  one  over  another. 

A  few  days  later  I  saw  a  smaller  species  carrying 
fragments  of  a  yellow  autumn  leaf  under  a  stone  in 
a  cornfield.  On  examining  the  place  about  sundown 
to  see  if  the  bee  lodged  there,  I  found  her  snugly 
ensconced  in  a  little  rude  cell  that  adhered  to  the 
under  side  of  the  stone.  There  was  no  pollen  in 
it,  and  I  half  suspected  it  was  merely  a  berth  in 
which  to  pass  the  night. 

These  bees  do  not  live  even  in  pairs,  but  abso- 
lutely alone.  They  have  large  baskets  on  their  legs 
in  which  to  carry  pollen,  an  article  they  are  very 
industrious  in  collecting. 

Why  the  larger  species  above  described  should 
have  waited  till  October  to  build  its  nest  is  a  mys- 
tery to  me.  Perhaps  this  was  the  second  brood  of 
the  season,  or  can  it  be  that  the  young  were  not  to 
hatch  till  the  following  spring? 


126  PEPACTON 


THE   WEATHERWISE   MUSKRAT 

I  am  more  than  half  persuaded  that  the  muskrat 
is  a  wise  little  animal,  and  that  on  the  subject  of 
the  weather,  especially,  he  possesses  some  secret 
that  I  should  be  glad  to  know.  In  the  fall  of 
1878  I  noticed  that  he  built  unusually  high  and 
massive  nests.  I  noticed  them  in  several  different 
localities.  In  a  shallow,  sluggish  pond  by  the  road- 
side, which  I  used  to  pass  daily  in  my  walk,  two 
nests  were  in  process  of  construction  throughout  the 
month  of  November.  The  builders  worked  only  at 
night,  and  I  could  see  each  day  that  the  work  had 
visibly  advanced.  When  there  was  a  slight  skim 
of  ice  over  the  pond,  this  was  broken  up  about  the 
nests,  with  trails  through  it  in  different  directions 
where  the  material  had  been  brought.  The  houses 
were  placed  a  little  to  one  side  of  the  main  channel, 
and  were  constructed  entirely  of  a  species  of  coarse 
wild  grass  that  grew  all  about.  So  far  as  I  could 
see,  from  first  to  last  they  were  solid  masses  of 
grass,  as  if  the  interior  cavity  or  nest  was  to  be 
excavated  afterward,  as  doubtless  it  was.  As  they 
emerged  from  the  pond  they  gradually  assumed  the 
shape  of  a  miniature  mountain,  very  bold  and  steep 
on  the  south  side,  and  running  down  a  long,  gentle 
grade  to  the  surface  of  the  water  on  the  north.  One 
could  see  that  the  little  architect  hauled  all  his 
material  up  this  easy  slope,  and  thrust  it  out  boldly 
around  the  other  side.  Every  mouthful  was  dis- 
tinctly defined.      After  they  were  two  feet  or  more 


NOTES   BY   THE   WAY  [27 

above  the  water,  I  expected  each  day  to  see  that 
the  finishing  stroke  had  been  given  and  the  work 
brought  to  a  close.     But  higher  yet,  said  the  builder 
December  drew  near,  the  cold  became  threatening, 
and  I  was  apprehensive  that  winter  would  suddenly 
shut  down  upon  those  unfinished  nests.      But  the 
wise  rats  knew  better  than  I  did;  they  had  received 
private  advices  from  headquarters,  that  I  knew  not 
of.      Finally,  about  the  6th  of  December  the  nests 
assumed  completion;  the  northern  incline  was  ab- 
sorbed or  carried  up,  and  each  structure  became  a 
strong,  massive  cone,    three  or  four  feet  high,   the 
largest  nest  of  the  kind  I  had  ever  seen.      Does  it 
mean  a  severe  winter?  I  inquired.      An  old  farmer 
said  it  meant  "high  water,"  and  he  was  right  once, 
at  least,   for  in  a  few  days  afterward  we   had  the 
heaviest    rainfall  known  in  this  section  for  half  a 
century.      The  creeks  rose    to  an   almost    unprece- 
dented height.  The  sluggish  pond  became  a  seething, 
turbulent  watercourse ;  gradually  the  angry  element 
crept   up   the   sides   of   these    lake   dwellings,    till, 
when    the    rain    ceased,    about    four    o'clock,'  they 
showed  above  the  flood  no  larger  than  a  man's  hat. 
During  the  night  the  channel  shifted  till  the  main 
current  swept  over  them,  and  next  day  not  a  vestige 
of  the  nests  was  to  be  seen;  they  had  gone  down- 
stream, as  had  many  other  dwellings  of  a   Less  tem- 
porary character.      The  rats  had  built  wisely,   and 
would  have  been  perfectly  secure  against  any  ordi- 
nary high  water,  but  who  can  foresee  a  flood?     The 
oldest  traditions  of  their  race  did  not  rim  back  to 
the  time  of  such  a  visitation. 


128  PEPACTON 

Nearly  a  week  afterward  another  dwelling  was 
begun,  well  away  from  the  treacherous  channel,  but 
the  architects  did  not  work  at  it  with  much  heart: 
the  material  was  very  scarce,  the  ice  hindered;  and 
before  the  basement  story  was  fairly  finished,  Winter 
had  the  pond  under  his  lock  and  key. 

In  other  localities  I  noticed  that,  where  the  nests 
were  placed  on  the  banks  of  streams,  they  were 
made  secure  against  the  floods  by  being  built  amid 
a  small  clump  of  bushes.  When  the  fall  of  1879 
came,  the  muskrats  were  very  tardy  about  begin- 
ning their  house,  laying  the  corner-stone  —  or  the 
corner-sod  —  about  December  1,  and  continuing  the 
work  slowly  and  indifferently.  On  the  15th  of 
the  month  the  nest  was  not  yet  finished.  This,  I 
said,  indicates  a  mild  winter;  and,  sure  enough, 
the  season  was  one  of  the  mildest  known  for  many 
years.      The  rats  had  little  use  for  their  house. 

Again,  in  the  fall  of  1880,  while  the  weather- 
wise  were  wagging  their  heads,  some  forecasting  a 
mild,  some  a  severe  winter,  I  watched  with  interest 
for  a  sign  from  my  muskrats.  About  Novem- 
ber 1,  a  month  earlier  than  the  previous  year,  they 
began  their  nest,  and  worked  at  it  with  a  will. 
They  appeared  to  have  just  got  tidings  of  what  was 
coming.  If  I  had  taken  the  hint  so  palpably  given, 
my  celery  would  not  have  been  frozen  up  in  the 
ground,  and  my  apples  caught  in  unprotected  places. 
When  the  cold  wave  struck  us,  about  November 
20,  my  four-legged  "I-told-you-so's "  had  nearly 
completed  their  dwelling;  it  lacked  only  the  ridge- 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAV  129 

board,  so  to  speak;  it  needed  a  little  "topping  out," 

to  give  it  a  finished  look.  But  this  it  never  gut. 
The  winter  had  come  to  stay,  and  it  waxed  more 
and  more  severe,  till  the  unprecedented  cold  of  the 
last  days  of  December  must  have  astonished  even 
the  wise  muskrats  in  their  snug  retreat.  I  ap- 
proached their  nest  at  this  time,  a  white  mound 
upon  the  white,  deeply  frozen  surface  of  the  pond, 
and  wondered  if  there  was  any  life  in  that  apparent 
sepulchre.  I  thrust  my  walking-stick  sharply  into 
it,  when  there  was  a  rustle  and  a  splash  into  the 
water,  as  the  occupant  made  his  escape.  Whal  a 
damp  basement  that  house  has,  I  thought,  and  what 
a  pity  to  rout  a  peaceful  neighbor  out  of  his  bed  in 
this  weather,  and  into  such  a  state  of  things  as  this ! 
But  water  does  not  wet  the  muskrat;  his  fur  is 
charmed,  and  not  a  drop  penetrates  it. 

Where  the  ground  is  favorable,  the  muskrats  do 
not  build  these  mound-like  nests,  but  burrow  into 
the  bank  a  long  distance,  and  establish  their  winter- 
quarters  there. 

Shall  we  not  say,  then,  in  view  of  the  above 
facts,  that  this  little  creature  is  weatherwise?  The 
hitting  of  the  mark  twice  might  be  mere  good  luck  ; 
but  three  bull's-eyes  in  succession  is  not  a  mere 
coincidence;  it  is  a  proof  of  skill.  The  muskrat  is 
not  found  in  the  Old  World,  which  is  a  Little  singu- 
lar, as  other  rats  so  abound  there,  and  as  those  slow- 
going  English  streams  especially,  with  their  grassy 
banks,  are  so  well  suited  to  him.  The  water-rat  of 
Europe  is  smaller,  but  of  similar  nature  and  habits. 


130  PEPACTON 

The  muskrat  does  not  hibernate  like  some  rodents, 
but  is  pretty  active  all  winter.  In  December  I 
noticed  in  my  walk  where  they  had  made  excur- 
sions of  a  few  yards  to  an  orchard  for  frozen  apples. 
One  day,  along  a  little  stream,  I  saw  a  mink  track 
amid  those  of  the  muskrat;  following  it  up,  I  pres- 
ently came  to  blood  and  other  marks  of  strife  upon 
*  the  snow  beside  a  stone  wall.  Looking  in  between 
the  stones,  I  found  the  carcass  of  the  luckless  rat, 
with  its  head  and  neck  eaten  away.  The  mink  had 
made  a  meal  of  him. 

CHEATING   THE    SQUIRRELS 

For  the  largest  and  finest  chestnuts  I  had  last 
fall  I  was  indebted  to  the  gray  squirrels.  Walking 
through  the  early  October  woods  one  day,  I  came 
upon  a  place  where  the  ground  was  thickly  strewn 
with  very  large  unopened  chestnut  burrs.  On  exam- 
ination I  found  that  every  burr  had  been  cut  square 
off  with  about  an  inch  of  the  stem  adhering,  and 
not  one  had  been  left  on  the  tree.  It  was  not  acci- 
dent, then,  but  design.  Whose  design  ?  The  squir- 
rels'. The  fruit  was  the  finest  I  had  ever  seen  in 
the  woods,  and  some  wise  squirrel  had  marked  it 
for  his  own.  The  burrs  were  ripe,  and  had  just 
begun  to  divide,  not  "threefold,"  but  fourfold,  "to 
show  the  fruit  within."  The  squirrel  that  had 
taken  all  .this  pains  had  evidently  reasoned  with 
himself  thus:  "Now,  these  are  extremely  fine  chest- 
nuts, and  I  want  them ;  if  I  wait  till  the  burrs  open 
on  the  tree,  the  crows  and  jays  will  be  sure  to  carry 


NOTES    BY   THE   WAY  13] 

off  a  great  many  of  the  nuts  before  they  fall ;  then, 
after  the  wind  has  rattled  out  what  remain,  there 
are  the  mice,  the  chipmunks,  the  red  squirrels,  the 
raccoons,  the  grouse,  to  say  nothing  of  the  boys  and 
the  pigs,  to  come  in  for  their  share ;  so  I  will  fore- 
stall events  a  little :  I  will  cut  off  the  burrs  when 
they  have  matured,  and  a  few  days  of  this  dry  Octo- 
ber weather  will  cause  every  one  of  them  to  open 
on  the  ground;  I  shall  be  on  hand  in  the  nick 
of  time  to  gather  up  my  nuts."  The  squirrel,  of 
course,  had  to  take  the  chances  of  a  prowler  like 
myself  coming  along,  but  he  had  fairly  stolen  a 
march  on  his  neighbors.  As  I  proceeded  to  collect 
and  open  the  burrs,  I  was  half  prepared  to  hear  an 
audible  protest  from  the  trees  about,  for  I  constantly 
fancied  myself  watched  by  shy  but  jealous  eyes. 
It  is  an  interesting  inquiry  how  the  squirrel  knew 
the  burrs  would  open  if  left  to  lie  on  the  ground  a 
few  days.  Perhaps  he  did  not  know,  but  thought 
the  experiment  worth  trying. 

The  gray  squirrel  is  peculiarly  an  American  pro- 
duct, and  might  serve  very  well  as  a  national 
emblem.  The  Old  World  can  beat  us  on  rats  and 
mice,  but  we  are  far  ahead  on  squirrels,  having  live 
or  six  species  to  Europe's  one. 

THE   SKYLARK   ON   THE    HUDSON 

My  note-book  of  the  past  season  is  enriched  with 
the  unusual  incident  of  an  English  skylark  in  full 
song  above  an  Esopus  meadow.  I  was  poking 
about  a  marshy  place   in  a  low  field  one  morning  in 


132  PEPACTON 

early  May,  when,  through  the  maze  of  bird- voices, 

—  laughter  of  robins,  call  of  nieadowlarks,  song  of 
bobolinks,  ditty  of  sparrows,  whistle  of  orioles,  twit- 
ter of  swallows,  etc.,  with  which  the  air  was  filled, 

—  my  ear  suddenly  caught  an  unfamiliar  strain. 
I  paused  to  listen:  can  it  be  possible,  I  thought, 
that  I  hear  a  lark,  or  am  I  dreaming?  The  song 
came  from  the  air,  above  a  wide,  low  meadow  many 
hundred  yards  away.  Withdrawing  a  few  paces  to 
a  more  elevated  position,  I  bent  my  eye  and  ear 
eagerly  in  that  direction.  Yes,  that  unstinted, 
jubilant,  skyward,  multitudinous  song  can  be  none 
other  than  the  lark's!  Any  of  our  native  songsters 
would  have  ceased  while  I  was  listening.  Pres- 
ently I  was  fortunate  enough  to  catch  sight  of  the 
bird.  He  had  reached  his  climax  in  the  sky,  and 
was  hanging  with  quivering  wings  beneath  a  small 
white  cloud,  against  which  his  form  was  clearly 
revealed.  I  had  seen  and  heard  the  lark  in  Eng- 
land, else  I  should  still  have  been  in  doubt  about 
the  identity  of  this  singer.  While  I  was  climbing 
a  fence  I  was  obliged  to  take  my  eye  from  the 
bird,  and  when  I  looked  again  the  song  had  ceased 
and  the  lark  had  gone.  I  was  soon  in  the  meadow 
above  which  I  had  heard  him,  and  the  first  bird  I 
flushed  was  the  lark. 

How  strange  he  looked  to  my  eye  (I  use  the 
masculine  gender  because  it  was  a  male  bird,  but 
an  Irishman  laboring  in  the  field,  to  whom  I  related 
my  discovery,  spoke  touchingly  of  the  bird  as  "she," 
and  I  notice  that  the  old  poets  do  the  same),  —  his 


NOTES    BY   THE    WAY  l;;.; 

long,  sharp  wings,  and  something  in  his  manner  of 
flight  that  suggested  a  shore-bird.      I  followed  him 
about  the  meadow  and  got  several  snatches  of  song 
out   of   him,    but   not   again   the   soaring,    .skyward 
flight  and  copious  musical  shower.      By  appearing 
to  pass  by,  I  several  times  got  within  a  few  yards 
of  him;  as  I  drew  near  he  would  squat  in  the  stub- 
ble, and  then  suddenly  start  up,  and,   when  fairly 
launched,  sing  briefly  till  he  alighted  again  fifteen 
or  twenty  rods  away.      I  came  twice  the  next  day 
and  twice  the  next,  and  each  time  found  the  lark 
in  the  meadow  or  heard  his  song  from  the  air  or 
the  sky.      What  was  especially  interesting  was  that 
the  lark  had   "singled  out  with  affection"  one  of 
our  native  birds,  and  the  one  that  most  resembled 
its  kind,  namely,  the  vesper  sparrow,  or  grass  finch. 
To  this  bird  I  saw  him  paying  his  addresses  with 
the  greatest  assiduity.      He  would  follow  it  about 
and  hover  above  it,  and  by  many  gentle  indirections 
seek  to  approach  it.      But  the  sparrow  was  shy,  and 
evidently  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  her  distin- 
guished  foreign   lover.      It   would   sometimes    take 
refuge  in  a  bush,  when  the  lark,  not  being  a  percher, 
would  alight   upon   the   ground   beneath   it.      This 
sparrow  looks  enough  like   the  lark   to   be   a   near 
relation.      Its  color  is  precisely  the  same,  and  it  has 
the   distinguishing  mark   of  the   two   lateral    white 
quills  in  its  tail.     It  has  the  same  habit  of  skulkinc 
in  the  stubble  or  the  grass  as  you  approach;   it  is 
exclusively   a  field-bird,    and    certain   of    its    notes 
might  have  been  copied  from  the  lark's  son ur.      In 


134  PEP ACTON 

size  it  is  about  a  third  smaller,  and  this  is  the  most 
marked  difference  between  them.  With  the  nobler 
bipeds,  this  would  not  have  been  any  obstacle  to 
the  union,  and  in  this  case  the  lark  was  evidently 
quite  ready  to  ignore  the  difference,  but  the  sparrow 
persisted  in  saying  him  nay.  It  was  doubtless  this 
obstinacy  on  her  part  that  drove  the  lark  away,  for, 
on  the  fifth  day,  I  could  not  find  him,  and  have 
never  seen  nor  heard  him  since.  I  hope  he  found 
a  mate  somewhere,  but  it  is  quite  improbable.  The 
bird  had,  most  likely,  escaped  from  a  cage,  or, 
maybe,  it  was  a  survivor  of  a  number  liberated  some 
years  ago  on  Long  Island.  There  is  no  reason  why 
the  lark  should  not  thrive  in  this  country  as  well 
as  in  Europe,  and,  if  a  few  hundred  were  liberated 
in  any  of  our  fields  in  April  or  May,  I  have  little 
doubt  they  would  soon  become  established.  And 
what  an  acquisition  it  would  be!  As  a  songster, 
the  lark  is  deserving  of  all  the  praise  that  has  been 
bestowed  upon  him.  He  would  not  add  so  much 
to  the  harmony  or  melody  of  our  bird-choir  as  he 
would  add  to  its  blithesomeness,  joyousness,  and 
power.  His  voice  is  the  jocund  and  inspiring  voice 
of  a  spring  morning.  It  is  like  a  ceaseless  and 
hilarious  clapping  of  hands.  I  was  much  interested 
in  an  account  a  friend  gave  me  of  the  first  skylark 
he  heard  while  abroad.  He  had  been  so  full  of  the 
sights  and  wonders  of  the  Old  World  that  he  had 
quite  forgotten  the  larks,  when  one  day,  as  he  was 
walking  somewhere  near  the  sea,  a  brown  bird 
started  up  in  front  of  him,  and  mounting  upward 


NOTES   BY   THE   WAY  1.;., 

began  to  sing.      It  drew  his  attention,  and  as  the 
bird  went  skyward,  pouring  out  his  rapid  and  jubi- 
lant notes,  like  bees  from  a  hive  in  swarming-time 
the  truth  suddenly  flashed  upon  the  observer. 

"  Good  heavens !  "  he  exclaimed,  "  that  is  a  sky- 
lark; there  is  no  mistaking  that  bird." 

It  is  this  unique  and  unmistakable  character  of 
the  lark's  song,  and  its  fountain-like  sparkle  an. I 
copiousness,  that  are  the  main  sources  of  its  charm. 

NOCTURNAL    INSECTS 

How  the  nocturnal  insects,  the  tree-crickets  and 
katydids,   fail  as  the  heat  fails!     They   are   musi- 
cians that  play  fast  or  slow,  strong  or  feeble,  just 
as  the  heat  of  the  season  waxes  or  wanes;  and  they 
play  as  long  as  life  lasts:   when  their  music  ceases 
they  are  dead.      The  katydids  begin  in  August,  and 
cry  with  great  vigor  and  spirit,  "Katy-did,"  "Katy- 
did," or  "Katy-did n't."     Toward  the  last  of  Sep- 
tember they  have  taken  in  sail  a  good  deal,  and  cry 
simply,     "Katy,  "   "Katy,"    with    frequent    pauses 
and  resting-spells.      In  October  they  languidly  gasp 
or  rasp,  "Kate,"  "Kate,"  "Kate,"  ami  before  the 
end  of  the  month  they  become  entirely  inaudible, 
though  I  suspect  that  if  one's  ear  were  sharp  enough 
he    might    still    hear    a    dying    whisper,     "Kate," 
"Kate."     Those  cousins  of  Katy,  the  little  green 
purring  tree-crickets,    fail   in  the  same  way   and   at 
the  same  time.      When  their  chorus  La  fullest,  the 
warm  autumn  night  fairly  throbs  with  the  Bofl   lull- 
ing undertone.      I  notice  that  the  son  ml  is  in  waves 


136  PEPACTON 

or  has  a  kind  of  rhythmic  beat.  What  a  gentle, 
unobtrusive  background  it  forms  for  the  sharp,  reedy 
notes  of  the  katydids!  As  the  season  advances, 
their  life  ebbs  and  ebbs:  you  hear  one  here  and  one 
there,  but  the  air  is  no  longer  filled  with  that  regu- 
lar pulse-beat  of  sound.  One  by  one  the  musicians 
cease,  till,  perhaps  on  some  mild  night  late  in  Octo- 
ber, you  hear  —  just  hear  and  that  is  all  —  the  last 
feeble  note  of  the  last  of  these  little  harpers. 

LOVE   AND   WAR   AMONG   THE   BIRDS 

In  the  spring  movements  of  the  fishes  up  the 
stream,  toward  their  spawning  beds,  the  females  are 
the  pioneers,  appearing  some  days  in  advance  of 
the  males.  With  the  birds  the  reverse  is  the  case, 
the  males  coming  a  week  or  ten  days  before  the 
females.  The  female  fish  is  usually  the  larger  and 
stronger,  and  perhaps  better  able  to  take  the  lead ; 
among  most  reptiles  the  same  fact  holds,  and 
throughout  the  insect  world  there  is  to  my  know- 
ledge no  exception  to  the  rule.  Among  the  birds, 
the  only  exception  I  am  aware  of  is  in  the  case  of 
the  birds  of  prey.  Here  the  female  is  the  larger 
and  stronger.  If  you  see  an  exceptionally  large 
and  powerful  eagle,  rest  assured  the  sex  is  feminine. 
But  higher  in  the  scale  the  male  comes  to  the  front 
and  leads  in  size  and  strength. 

But  the  first  familiar  spring  birds  are  cocks; 
hence  the  songs  and  tilts  and  rivalries.  Hence  also 
the  fact  that  they  are  slightly  in  excess  of  the  other 
sex,  to  make  up  for  this  greater  exposure;  appar- 


NOTES   BY   THE   WAY  i;;7 

ently  no  courting  is  done  in  the  South,  and  no 
matches  are  prearranged.  The  males  leave  irregu- 
larly without  any  hint,  I  suspect,  to  the  females 
to  when  and  where  they  will  meet  them.  In  the 
case  of  the  passenger  pigeon,  however,  the  two 
sexes  travel  together,  as  they  do  among  the  migrat- 
ing water-fowls. 

With  the  song-birds,  love-making  begins  as  soon 
as  the  hens  are  here.      So  far  as  I  have  observed, 
the  robin  and  the  bluebird  win  their  mates  by  gen- 
tle and  fond  approaches;   but  certain  of  the  spar- 
rows, notably  the  little  social  sparrow  or  "chippie," 
appear  to  carry  the  case  by  storm.      The  same  pro- 
ceeding may  be  observed  among  the  English  spar- 
rows, now  fairly  established  on  our  soil.      Two  or 
three   males   beset   a  female   and   a   regular    scuffle 
ensues.      The  poor  bird  is  pulled  and  jostled  and 
cajoled  amid  what  appears  to  be  the  greatest  mirth 
and  hilarity  of  her  audacious  suitors.     Her  plumage 
is  plucked   and   ruffled;   the   rivals   roll   over   each 
other  and  over  her;  she  extricates  herself  as  best 
she  can,  and  seems  to  say  or  scream  "no,"  "no," 
to  every  one  of  them  with  great  emphasis.      What 
finally  determines  her  choice  would  be  hard  to  say. 
Our  own  sparrows  are  far  less  noisy  and  obstreper- 
ous, but  the  same  little  comedy  in  a  milder  form  is 
often  enacted  among  them.      When  two  males  have 
a  tilt  they  rise  several  feet  in  the  air,  beak  to  beak, 
and  seek  to  deal  each  other  ].]..ws  as  they  mount. 
I  have  seen  two  male   chewinks  facing  each   other 
and  wrathfully  impelled  upward   in   the  same   man- 


138  PEPACTON 

ner,  while  the  female  that  was  the  bone  of  conten- 
tion between  them  regarded  them  unconcernedly 
from  the  near  bushes. 

The  bobolink  is  also  a  precipitate  and  impetuous 
wooer.  It  is  a  trial  of  speed,  as  if  the  female  were 
to  say,  "Catch  me  and  I  am  yours,"  and  she  scur- 
ries away  with  all  her  might  and  main,  often  with 
three  or  four  dusky  knights  in  hot  pursuit.  When 
she  takes  to  cover  in  the  grass,  there  is  generally 
a  squabble  "down  among  the  tickle-tops,"  or  under 
the  buttercups,  and  "  Winterseeble "  or  "Conque- 
dle  "  is  the  winner. 

In  marked  contrast  to  this  violent  love-making 
are  the  social  and  festive  reunions  of  the  goldfinches 
about  mating  time.  All  the  birds  of  a  neighborhood 
gather  in  a  treetop,  and  the  trial  apparently  becomes 
one  of  voice  and  song.  The  contest  is  a  most 
friendly  and  happy  one;  all  is  harmony  and  gayety. 
The  females  chirrup  and  twitter,  and  utter  their 
confiding  "paisley"  "paisley"  while  the  more 
gayly  dressed  males  squeak  and  warble  in  the  most 
delightful  strain.  The  matches  are  apparently  all 
made  and  published  during  these  gatherings;  every- 
body is  in  a  happy  frame  of  mind;  there  is  no  jeal- 
ousy, and  no  rivalry  but  to  see  who  shall  be  gayest. 

It  often  happens  among  the  birds  that  the  male 
has  a  rival  after  the  nuptials  have  been  celebrated 
and  the  work  of  housekeeping  fairly  begun.  Every 
season  a  pair  of  phoebe-birds  have  built  their  nest 
on  an  elbow  in  the  spouting  beneath  the  eaves  of 
my  house.      The  past  spring  a  belated  male  made 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAY  j;;;, 

desperate  efforts  to  supplant  the   lawful   mate  and 
gain  possession  of  the  unfinished  nest.      There  was 
a  battle  fought  about  the  premises  every   hour  in 
the  day  for  at  least  a  week.     The  antagonists  would 
frequently  grapple  and  fall  to  the  ground,  and  keep 
their  hold  like  two  dogs.      On  one  such   occasion  I 
came  near  covering  them  with  my  hat.      I  believe 
the  intruder  was  finally  worsted  and  withdrew  from 
the  place.      One  noticeable  feature  of  the  affair  was 
the  apparent  utter  indifference  of  the  female,  who 
went  on  with  her  nest-building  as  if  all  was  peace 
•  and  harmony.      There  can  be  little  doubt  that  she 
would  have  applauded  and  accepted  the  other  bird 
had  he  finally  been  the  victor. 

One  of  the  most  graceful  of  warriors  is  the  robin. 
I  know  few  prettier  sights  than  two  males  challeng- 
ing  and  curveting  about  each  other  upon  the  grass 
in  early  spring.      Their  attentions  to  each  other°  are 
so   courteous   and  restrained.      In   alternate   curves 
and   graceful   sallies,    they   pursue   and    circumvent 
each  other.      First  one  hops  a  few  feet,    thru   the 
other,  each  one  standing  erect  in  true  military  Btyle 
while  his  fellow  passes  him  and  descril.cs  the  s< 
ment  of  an  ellipse   about   him,    both   uttering   the 
while  a  fine  complacent  warble  in  a  high  but  sup- 
pressed   key.      Are    they    lovers    or    enemies?    the 
beholder    wonders,   until  they   make   a    spring   and 
are  beak  to  beak  in  the  twinkling  of  an   eye,  and 
perhaps  mount  a  few  feet  into  the  air,  but   rarely 
actually  delivering  blows  upon  each   other.      Every 
thrust  is  parried,  every  movement   met.      They  fol- 


140  PEPACTON 

low  each  other  with  dignified  composure  about  the 
fields  or  lawn,  into  trees  and  upon  the  ground,  with 
plumage  slightly  spread,  breasts  glowing,  their  lisp- 
ing, shrill  war- song  just  audible.  It  forms  on  the 
whole  the  most  civil  and  high-bred  tilt  to  be  wit- 
nessed during  the  season. 

When  the  cock-robin  makes  love  he  is  the  same 
considerate,  deferential,  but  insinuating  gallant.  The 
warble  he  makes  use  of  on  that  occasion  is  the  same, 
so  far  as  my  ear  can  tell,  as  the  one  he  pipes  when 
facing  his  rival. 

FOX    AND   HOUND 

I  stood  on  a  high  hill  or  ridge  one  autumn 
day  and  saw  a  hound  run  a  fox  through  the  fields 
far  beneath  me.  What  odors  that  fox  must  have 
shaken  out  of  himself,  I  thought,  to  be  traced  thus 
easily,  and  how  great  their  specific  gravity  not  to 
have  been  blown  away  like  smoke  by  the  breeze ! 
The  fox  ran  a  long  distance  down  the  hill,  keeping 
within  a  few  feet  of  a  stone  wall;  then  turned  a 
right  angle  and  led  off  for  the  mountain,  across  a 
plowed  field  and  a  succession  of  pasture  lands.  In 
about  fifteen  minutes  the  hound  came  in  full  blast 
with  her  nose  in  the  air,  and  never  once  did  she 
put  it  to  the  ground  while  in  my  sight.  When 
she  came  to  the  stone  wall,  she  took  the  other  side 
from  that  taken  by  the  fox,  and  kept  about  the 
same  distance  from  it,  being  thus  separated  several 
yards  from  his  track,  with  .the  fence  between  her 
and  it.      At  the  point  where  the  fox  turned  sharply 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAV  141 

to  the  left,  the  hound  overshot  a  few  yards,  thru 
wheeled,  and,  feeling  the  air  a  moment  with  hei  D 
took  up  the  scent  again  and  was  off  on  his  trail 
as  unerringly  as  Fate.  It  seemed  as  if  the  fox  must 
have  sowed  himself  broadcast  as  he  went  along, 
and  that  his  scent  was  so  rank  and  heavy  that  it 
settled  in  the  hollows  and  clung  tenaciously  to  the 
bushes  and  crevices  in  the  fence.  I  thought  I  ought 
to  have  caught  a  remnant  of  it  as  I  passed  that  way 
some  minutes  later,  but  I  did  not.  But  I  suppose  it 
was  not  that  the  light-footed  fox  so  impressed  him- 
self upon  the  ground  he  ran  over,  but  that  the  sense 
of  the  hound  was  so  keen.  To  her  sensitive  nose 
these  tracks  steamed  like  hot  cakes,  and  they  would 
not  have  cooled  off  so  as  to  be  undistinguishable  for 
several  hours.  For  the  time  being,  she  had  hut  one 
sense:  her  whole  soul  was  concentrated  in  her  nose. 

It  is  amusing,  when  the  hunter  starts  out  of  a 
winter  morning,  to  see  his  hound  probe  the  old 
tracks  to  determine  how  recent  they  are.  He  sinks 
his  nose  down  deep  in  the  snow  so  as  to  exclude 
the  air  from  above,  then  draws  a  long  full  breath, 
giving  sometimes  an  audible  snort.  If  there  re- 
mains the  least  effluvium  of  the  fox,  the  hound  will 
detect  it.  If  it  be  very  slight  it  only  sets  his  tail 
wagging;  if  it  be  strong  it  unloosens  his  tongue. 

Such  things  remind  one  of  the  waste,  the  friction 
that  is  going  on  all  about  us,  even  when  the  wheels 
of  life  run  the  most  smoothly.  A  fos  cannol  trip 
along  the  top  of  a  stone  wall  so  lightly  but  that  lie 
will  leave  enough  of  himself  to  betray  his  course  to 


142  PEPACTON 

the  hound  for  hours  afterward.  When  the  boys 
play  "hare  and  hounds"  the  hare  scatters  bits  of 
paper  to  give  a  clew  to  the  pursuers,  but  he  scatters 
himself  much  more  freely  if  only  our  sight  and  scent 
were  sharp  enough  to  detect  the  fragments.  Even 
the  fish  leave  a  trail  in  the  water,  and  it  is  said  the 
otter  will  pursue  them  by  it.  The  birds  make  a 
track  in  the  air,  only  their  enemies  hunt  by  sight 
rather  than  by  scent.  The  fox  baffles  the  hound 
most  upon  a  hard  crust  of  frozen  snow;  the  scent 
will  not  hold  to  the  smooth,  bead-like  granules. 

Judged  by  the  eye  alone,  the  fox  is  the  lightest 
and  most  buoyant  creature  that  runs.  His  soft 
wrapping  of  fur  conceals  the  muscular  play  and 
effort  that  is  so  obvious  in  the  hound  that  pur- 
sues him,  and  he  comes  bounding  along  precisely 
as  if  blown  by  a  gentle  wind.  His  massive  tail  is 
carried  as  if  it  floated  upon  the  air  by  its  own  light- 
ness. 

The  hound  is  not  remarkable  for  his  fleetness, 
but  how  he  will  hang !  —  often  running  late  into 
the  night,  and  sometimes  till  morning,  from  ridge 
to  ridge,  from  peak  to  peak;  now  on  the  mountain, 
now  crossing  the  valley,  now  playing  about  a  large 
slope  of  uplying  pasture  fields.  At  times  the  fox 
has  a  pretty  well  defined  orbit,  and  the  hunter 
knows  where  to  intercept  him.  Again,  he  leads  off 
like  a  comet,,  quite  beyond  the  system  of  hills  and 
ridges  upon  which  he  was  started,  and  his  return 
is  entirely  a  matter  of  conjecture;  but  if  the  day  be 
not  more  than  half  spent,  the  chances  are  that  the 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAY  II.; 

fox  will  be  back  before  night,  though  the  spo] 

man's  patience  seldom  holds  out  that  long. 

The  hound  is  a  most  interesting  dog.  How  sol- 
emn and  long-visaged  he  is,  —  how  peaceful  and 
well-disposed !  He  is  the  Quaker  among  dogs.  All 
the  viciousness  and  currishness  seem  to  have  been 
weeded  out  of  him;  he  seldom  quarrels,  or  fights, 
or  plays,  like  other  dogs.  Two  strange  hounds, 
meeting  for  the  first  time,  behave  as  civilly  toward 
each  other  as  two  men.  I  know  a  hound  that  lias 
an  ancient,  wrinkled,  human,  far-away  look  that 
reminds  one  of  the  bust  of  Homer  among  the  Elgin 
marbles.  He  looks  like  the  mountains  toward  which 
his  heart  vearns  so  much. 

The  hound  is  a  great  puzzle  to  the  farm  dog ;  the 
latter,  attracted  by  his  baying,  comes  barking  and 
snarling  up  through  the  fields  bent  on  picking  a 
quarrel;  he  intercepts  the  hound,  snubs  and  insults 
and  annoys  him  in  every  way  possible,  but  the 
hound  heeds  him  not:  if  the  dog  attacks  him  he 
gets  away  as  best  he  can,  and  goes  on  with  the  trail : 
the  cur  bristles  and  barks  and  struts  about  for  a 
while,  then  goes  back  to  the  house,  evidently  think- 
ing the  hound  a  lunatic,  which  he  is  for  the  time 
being,  — a  monomaniac,  the  slave  and  victim  of  one 
idea.  I  saw  the  master  of  a  hound  one  day  arresl 
him  in  full  course,  to  give  one  of  the  hunters  time 
to  get  to  a  certain  runway;  the  dog  cried  and 
struggled  to  free  himself,  and  would  Listen  neither 
to  threats  nor  caresses.  Knowing  he  must  be  hun- 
gry,    I  offered  him   my   lunch,    but    he   would    nol 


1 44  PEPACTON 

touch  it.  I  put  it  in  his  mouth,  but  he  threw  it 
contemptuously  from  him.  We  coaxed  and  petted 
and  reassured  him,  but  he  was  under  a  spell;  he 
was  bereft  of  all  thought  or  desire  but  the  one  pas- 
sion to  pursue  that  trail. 

THE    TREE-TOAD 

We  can  boast  a  greater  assortment  of  toads  and 
frogs  in  this  country  than  can  any  other  land. 
What  a  chorus  goes  up  from  our  ponds  and  marshes 
in  spring !  The  like  of  it  cannot  be  heard  anywhere 
else  under  the  sun.  In  Europe  it  would  certainly 
have  made  an  impression  upon  the  literature.  An 
attentive  ear  will  detect  first  one  variety,  then 
another,  each  occupying  the  stage  from  three  or 
four  days  to  a  week.  The  latter  part  of  April, 
when  the  little  peeping  frogs  are  in  full  chorus,  one 
comes  upon  places,  in  his  drives  or  walks  late  in  the 
day,  where  the  air  fairly  palpitates  with  sound; 
from  every  little  marshy  hollow  and  spring  run 
there  rises  an  impenetrable  maze  or  cloud  of  shrill 
musical  voices.  After  the  peepers,  the  next  frog 
to  appear  is  the  clucking  frog,  a  rather  small,  dark- 
brown  frog,  with  a  harsh,  clucking  note,  which 
later  in  the  season  becomes  the  well-known  brown 
wood-frog.  Their  chorus  is  heard  for  a  few  days 
only,  while  their  spawn  is  being  deposited.  In 
less  than  a  week  it  ceases,  and  I  never  hear  them 
again  till  the  next  April.  As  the  weather  gets 
warmer,  the  toads  take  to  the  water,  and  set  up 
that  long-drawn  musical  tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-ing  note.     The 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAY  1  15 

voice    of    the    bull  -  frog,    who   calls,    according    to 

the  boys,  "jug  o'  rum,"  "jug  o'  nun,"  "pull  tin- 
plug,"  "pull  the  plug,"  is  not  heard  much  be- 
fore June.  The  peepers,  the  clucking  frog,  and 
the  bullfrog  are  the  only  ones  that  call  in  chorus. 
The  most  interesting  and  the  most  shy  and  with- 
drawn of  all  our  frogs  and  toads  is  the  tree-toad,  — 
the  creature  that,  from  the  old  apple  or  cherry  tree, 
or  red  cedar,  announces  the  approach  of  rain,  and 
battles  your  every  effort  to  see  or  discover  him.  It 
has  not  (as  some  people  imagine)  exactly  the  power 
of  the  chameleon  to  render  itself  invisible  by  assum- 
ing the  color  of  the  object  it  perches  upon,  but  it 
sits  very  close  and  still,  and  its  mottled  back,  of  dif- 
ferent shades  of  ashen  gray,  blends  it  perfectly  with 
the  bark  of  nearly  every  tree.  The  only  change 
in  its  color  I  have  ever  noticed  is  that  it  is  lighter 
on  a  light-colored  tree,  like  the  beech  or  soft  maple, 
and  darker  on  the  apple,  or  cedar,  or  pine.  Then 
it  is  usually  hidden  in  some  cavity  or  hollow  of  the 
tree,  when  its  voice  appears  to  come  from  the  out- 
side. 

Most  of  my  observations  upon  the  habits  of  this 
creature  run  counter  to  the  authorities  1  have  been 
able  to  consult  on  the  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  the  tree-toad  is  nocturnal  in 
its  habits,  like  the  common  toad.  By  day  it  re- 
mains motionless  and  concealed;  by  night  it  is  as 
alert  and  active  as  an  owl,  feeding  and  moving 
about  from  tree  to  tree.  I  have  never  known  < 'in- 
to change  its  position  by  day,  and   never  knew  one 


146  PEPACTON 

to  fail  to  do  so  by  night.  Last  summer  one  was 
discovered  sitting  against  a  window  upon  a  climbing 
rosebush.  The  house  had  not  been  occupied  for 
some  days,  and  when  the  curtain  was  drawn  the 
toad  was  discovered  and  closely  observed.  His 
light  gray  color  harmonized  perfectly  with  the  un- 
painted  woodwork  of  the  house.  During  the  day 
he  never  moved  a  muscle,  but  next  morning  he  was 
gone.  A  friend  of  mine  caught  one,  and  placed  it 
under  a  tumbler  on  his  table  at  night,  leaving  the 
edge  of  the  glass  raised  about  the  eighth  of  an  inch 
to  admit  the  air.  During  the  night  he  was  awak- 
ened by  a  strange  sound  in  his  room.  Pat,  pat, 
pat  went  some  object,  now  here,  now  there,  among 
the  furniture,  or  upon  the  walls  and  doors.  On 
investigating  the  matter,  he  found  that  by  some 
means  his  tree-toad  had  escaped  from  under  the 
glass,  and  was  leaping  in  a  very  lively  manner  about 
the  room,  producing  the  sound  he  had  heard  when 
it  alighted  upon  the  door,  or  wall,  or  other  perpen- 
dicular surface. 

The  home  of  the  tree-toad,  I  am  convinced,  is 
usually  a  hollow  limb  or  other  cavity  in  the  tree; 
here  he  makes  his  headquarters,  and  passes  most  of 
the  day.  For  two  years  a  pair  of  them  frequented 
an  old  apple-tree  near  my  house,  occasionally  sitting 
at  the  mouth  of  a  cavity  that  led  into  a  large  branch, 
but  usually  their  voices  were  heard  from  within  the 
cavity  itself.  On  one  occasion,  while  walking  in 
the  woods  in  early  May,  I  heard  the  voice  of  a  tree- 
toad  but  a  few  yards  from  me.      Cautiously  follow- 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAV  117 

ing  up  the  sound,  I  decided,  after  some  delay,  that 

it  proceeded  from  the  trunk  of  a  small  soft  maple; 
the  tree  was  hollow,  the  entrance  to  the  interior 
being  a  few  feet  from  the  ground.  I  could  not  dis- 
cover the  toad,  but  was  so  convinced  that  it  was 
concealed  in  the  tree,  that  I  stopped  up  the  hole, 
determined  to  return  with  an  axe,  when  I  had  time, 
and  cut  the  trunk  open.  A  week  elapsed  before  I 
again  went  to  the  woods,  when,  on  cutting  into  the 
cavity  of  the  tree,  I  found  a  pair  of  tree-toads,  male 
and  female,  and  a  large,  shelless  snail.  Whether 
the  presence  of  the  snail  was  accidental,  or  whether 
these  creatures  associated  together  for  some  purpo 
I  do  not  know.  The  male  toad  was  easily  distin- 
guished from  the  female  by  its  large  head,  and  more 
thin,  slender,  and  angular  body.  The  female  was 
much  the  more  beautiful,  both  in  form  and  color. 
The  cavity,  which  was  long  and  irregular,  was  evi- 
dently their  home;  it  had  been  nicely  cleaned  out, 
and  was  a  snug,  safe  apartment. 

The  finding  of  the  two  sexes  together,  under  such 
circumstances  and  at  that  time  of  the  year,  suggests 
the  inquiry  whether  they  do  not  breed  away  from 
the  water,  as  others  of  our  toads  are  known  at  times 
to  do,  and  thus  skip  the  tadpole  state  I  have  sev- 
eral times  seen  the  ground,  after  a  June  shown-, 
swarming  with  minute  toads,  out  to  wel  their  .jack- 
ets. Some  of  them  were  no  larger  than  crick' 
They  were  a  long  distance  from  the  water,  and  had 
evidently  been  hatched  on  the  land,  and  had  never 
been  polliwigs.      Whether  the   tree-toad   breeds   in 


148  PEPACTON 

trees    or    on    the    land,    yet    remains    to    be  deter- 
mined. 1 

Another  fact  in  the  natural  history  of  this  crea- 
ture, not  set  down  in  the  books,  is  that  they  pass 
the  winter  in  a  torpid  state  in  the  ground,  or  in 
stumps  and  hollow  trees,  instead  of  in  the  mud  of 
ponds  and  marshes,  like  true  frogs,  as  we  have 
been  taught.  The  pair  in  the  old  apple-tree  above 
referred  to,  I  heard  on  a  warm,  moist  day  late  in 
November,  and  again  early  in  April.  On  the  latter 
occasion,  I  reached  my  hand  down  into  the  cavity 
of  the  tree  and  took  out  one  of  the  toads.  It  was 
the  first  I  had  heard,  and  I  am  convinced  it  had 
passed  the  winter  in  the  moist,  mud-like  mass  of 
rotten  wood  that  partially  filled  the  cavity.  It  had 
a  fresh,  delicate  tint,  as  if  it  had  not  before  seen 
the  light  that  spring.  The  president  of  a  Western 
college  writes  in  "  Science  News  "  that  two  of  his 
students  found  one  in  the  winter  in  an  old  stump 
which  they  demolished;  and  a  person  whose  vera- 
city I  have  no  reason  to  doubt  sends  me  a  specimen 
that  he  dug  out  of  the  ground  in  December  while 
hunting  for  Indian  relics.  The  place  was  on  the 
top  of  a  hill,  under  a  pine-tree.  The  ground  was 
frozen  on  the  surface,  and  the  toad  was,  of  course, 
torpid. 

1  It  now  (1895)  seems  well  established  that  both  common  toads 
and  tree-toads  pass  the  first  period  of  their  lives  in  water  as  tad- 
poles and  that  both  undergo  their  metamorphosis  when  very 
small.  As  soon  as  the  change  is  effected,  the  little  toads  leave 
the  water  and  scatter  themselves  over  the  country  with  remark- 
able rapidity,  traveling  chiefly  by  night,  but  showing  themselves 
in  the  daytime  after  showers. 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAV  1  t'.t 

During  the  present  season,  I  obtained  additional 
proof  of  the  fact  that  the  tree-toad  hibernates  on 
dry   land.      The   12th   of   November  was   a   warm, 
spring-like  day;   wind  southwest,    with   slighl    rain 
in  the  afternoon,  — just  the  day  to  bring  things  out 
of  their  winter  retreats.      As  I  was  about  to  enter 
my  door  at  dusk,  my  eye  fell  upon  what  proved  to 
be  the  large  tree- toad  in  question,  sitting  on  some 
low  stone-work  at  the  foot  of  a  terrace  a  few  feet 
from   the   house.      I   paused  to  observe  his  move- 
ments.     Presently  he  started  on  his  travels  across 
the   yard   toward   the   lawn   in    front.      He    leaped 
about  three  feet  at  a  time,  with  long  pauses  between 
each  leap.     For  fear  of  losing  him  as  it  grew  darker, 
I  captured  him,  and  kept  him  under  the  coal  sieve 
till  morning.    He  was  very  active  at  night  trying  to 
escape.    In  the  morning,  I  amused  myself  with  him 
for  some  time   in   the   kitchen.     I   found   he  could 
adhere  to  a  window-pane,  but  could  not  ascend  it; 
gradually  his  hold  yielded,  till  he  sprang  off  on   the 
casing.    I  observed  that,  in  sitting  upon  the  floor  or 
upon  the  ground,    he  avoided  bringing  his  toes  in 
contact  with  the  surface,  as  if  they  were  too  tender 
or  delicate  for  such  coarse  uses,  but  sat  upon   the 
hind  part  of  his  feet.      Said  toes  had  a  very  bung- 
ling, awkward  appearance  at  such  times;  they  looked 
like  hands  encased  in  gray  woolen  gloves  much  too 
large  for  them.      Their  round,  llattcned  ends,  espe- 
cially when   not  in    use,  have  a  comically  helpli 
look. 

After  a  while  I  let  my  prisoner  escape  into  the 


150  PEP ACTON 

open  air.      The  weather  had  grown   much   colder, 
and  there  was  a  hint  of  coming  frost.      The  toad 
took  the  hint  at  once,  and,  after  hopping  a  few  yards 
from  the  door  to  the  edge  of  a  grassy  bank,  began 
to  prepare  for  winter.     It  was  a  curious  proceeding. 
He  went  into  the  ground  backward,  elbowing  him- 
self through  the  turf  with  the  sharp  joints  of  his 
hind  legs,  and  going  down  in  a  spiral  manner.      His 
progress  was  very  slow:   at  night  I  could  still  see 
him  by  lifting  the  grass ;  and  as  the  weather  changed 
again  to  warm,  with  southerly  winds  before  morn- 
ing, he  stopped  digging  entirely.      The  next  day  I 
took  him  out,  and  put  him  into  a  bottomless  tub 
sunk  into  the  ground  and   filled  with   soft   earth, 
leaves,  and  leaf   mould,  where   he  passed  the  win- 
ter safely,    and   came  out  fresh    and  bright  in  the 
spring. 


The  little  peeping  frogs  lead  a  sort  of  arboreal 
life,  too,  a  part  of  the  season,  but  they  are  quite 
different  from  the  true  tree-toads  above  described. 
They  appear  to  leave  the  marshes  in  May,  and  to 
take  to  the  woods  or  bushes.  I  have  never  seen 
them  on  trees,  but  upon  low  shrubs.  They  do  not 
seem  to  be  climbers,  but  perchers.  I  caught  one 
in  May,  in  some  low  bushes  a  few  rods  from  the 
swamp.  It  perched  upon  the  small  twigs  like  a 
bird,  and  would  leap  about  among  them,  sure  of  its 
hold  every  time.  I  was  first  attracted  by  its  pip- 
ing. I  brought  it  home,  and  it  piped  for  one  twi- 
light in  a  bush  in  my  yard  and  then  was  gone.  I 
do    not    think   they    pipe    much    after   leaving  the 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAV  15] 

water.      I  have  found  them  early  in  April  upon   the 
ground  in  the  woods,  and  again  late  in  the  fall. 

In  November,  1879,  the  warm,  moist  weather 
brought  them  out  in  numbers.  They  were  hopping 
about  everywhere  upon  the  fallen  leavi  Within 
a  small  space  I  captured  six.  Some  of  them  were 
the  hue  of  the  tan-colored  leaves,  probably  Picker- 
ing's hyla,  and  some  were  darker,  according  to  the 
locality.  Of  course  they  do  not  go  to  the  marshes 
to  winter,  else  they  would  not  wait  so  late  in  the 
season.  I  examined  the  ponds  and  marshes,  and 
found  bullfrogs  buried  in  the  mud,  but  no  peepers. 

THE   SPRING   BIRDS 

We  never  know  the  precise  time  the  birds  leave 
us  in  the  fall:  they  do  not  go  suddenly;  their 
departure  is  like  that  of  an  army  of  occupation  in 
no  hurry  to  be  off;  they  keep  going  and  going,  and 
we  hardly  know  when  the  last  straggler  is  gone. 
Not  so  their  return  in  the  spring:  then  it  is  like 
an  army  of  invasion,  and  we  know  the  very  day 
when  the  first  scouts  appear.  It  is  a  memorable 
event.  Indeed,  it  is  always  a  surprise  to  me,  and 
one  of  the  compensations  of  our  abrupt  and  chan 
able  climate,  this  suddenness  with  which  the  birds 
come  in  spring, —  in  fact,  with  which  spring  itself 
comes,  alighting,  maybe,  to  tarry  only  a  day  or  two, 
but  real  and  genuine,  for  all  that.  Win n  .March 
arrives,  we  do  not  know  what  a  day  may  bring  forth. 
It  is  like  turning  over  a  leaf,  a  new  chapter  of  start- 
ling incidents  lying  just  on  the  other  side. 


152  PEPACTON 

A  few  days  ago,  Winter  had  not  perceptibly 
relaxed  his  hold;  then  suddenly  he  began  to  soften 
a  little,  and  a  warm  haze  to  creep  up  from  the 
south,  but  not  a  solitary  bird,  save  the  winter  resi- 
dents, was  to  be  seen  or  heard.  Next  day  the  sun 
seemed  to  have  drawn  immensely  nearer;  his  beams 
were  full  of  power;  and  we  said,  "Behold  the  first 
spring  morning!  And,  as  if  to  make  the  prophecy 
complete,  there  is  the  note  of  a  bluebird,  and  it  is 
not  yet  nine  o'clock."  Then  others,  and  still  oth- 
ers, were  heard.  How  did  they  know  it  was  going 
to  be  a  suitable  day  for  them  to  put  in  an  appear- 
ance? It  seemed  as  if  they  must  have  been  waiting 
somewhere  close  by  for  the  first  warm  day,  like 
actors  behind  the  scenes,  —  the  moment  the  curtain 
was  lifted,  they  were  ready  and  rushed  upon  the 
stage.  The  third  warm  day,  and,  behold,  all  the 
principal  performers  come  rushing  in,  — song  spar- 
rows, cow  blackbirds,  grackles,  the  meadowlark, 
cedar- birds,  the  phcebe-bird,  and,  hark!  what  bird 
laughter  was  that?  the  robins,  hurrah!  the  robins! 
Not  two  or  three,  but  a  score  or  two  of  them;  they 
are  following  the  river  valley  north,  and  they  stop 
in  the  trees  from  time  to  time,  and  give  vent  to 
their  gladness.  It  is  like  a  summer  picnic  of  school 
children  suddenly  let  loose  in  a  wood;  they  sing, 
shout,  whistle,  squeal,  call,  etc.,  in  the  most  blithe- 
some strains.  The  warm  wave  has  brought  the 
birds  upon  its  crest;  or  some  barrier  has  given  way, 
the  levee  of  winter  has  broken,  and  spring  comes 
like  an  inundation.      No  doubt,  the  snow  and  the 


NOTES   BY   THE   WAY  1.,:; 

frost  will  stop  the  crevasse  again,    but  only  for   a 
brief  season. 

Between  the  10th  and  the  15th  of  March,  in  the 
Middle  and  Eastern  States,  we  are  pretty  sure  to 
have  one  or  more  of  these  spring  days.  Brighl 
days,  clear  days,  may  have  been  plenty  all  winter; 
but  the  air  was  a  desert,  the  sky  transparent  ice: 
now  the  sky  is  full  of  radiant  warmth,  and  the  air 
of  a  half- articulate  murmur  and  awakening.  How- 
still  the  morning  is !  It  is  at  such  times  that  we 
discover  what  music  there  is  in  the  souls  of  the 
little  slate-colored  snowbirds.  How  they  squeal, 
and  chatter,  and  chirp,  and  trill,  always  in  scatter*  ,1 
troops  of  fifty  or  a  hundred,  rilling  the  air  with  a 
fine  sibilant  chorus!  That  joyous  and  childlike 
"chew,"  "chew,"  "chew"  is  very  expressive. 
Through  this  medley  of  finer  songs  and  calls,  there 
is  shot,  from  time  to  time,  the  clear,  strong  note  of 
the  meadowlark.  It  comes  from  some  field  or  tree 
farther  away,  and  cleaves  the  air  like  an  arrow. 
The  reason  why  the  birds  always  appear  first  in  the 
morning,  and  not  in  the  afternoon,  is  that  in  migra- 
ting they  travel  by  night,  and  stop  and  feed  and 
disport  themselves  by  day.  They  come  by  the  owl 
train,  and  are  here  before  we  are  up  in  the  morning. 

A    LOXE    QIEEX 

Once,  while  walking  in  the  woods,  I  saw  <juite 
a  large  nest  in  the  top  of  a  pine-tree.  On  climbing 
up  to  it,  I  found  that  it  had  originally  been  a  crow's 
nest.      Then  a  red  squirrel  had  appropriated  it  ;   he 


154  PErACTON 

had  filled  up  the  cavity  with  the  fine  inner  bark  of 
the  red  cedar,  and  made  himself  a  dome-shaped  nest 
upon  the  crow's  foundation  of  coarse  twigs.  It  is 
probable  that  the  flying  squirrel,  or  the  white-footed 
mouse,  had  been  the  next  tenants,  for  the  finish  of 
the  interior  suggested  their  dainty  taste.  But  when 
I  found  it,  its  sole  occupant  was  a  bumblebee,  — 
the  mother  or  queen  bee,  just  planting  her  colony. 
She  buzzed  very  loud  and  complainingly,  and  stuck 
.up  her  legs  in  protest  against  my  rude  inquisitive- 
ness,  but  refused  to  vacate  the  premises.  She  had 
only  one  sack  or  cell  constructed,  in  which  she  had 
deposited  her  first  egg,  and,  beside  that,  a  large  loaf 
of  bread,  probably  to  feed  the  young  brood  with,  as 
they  should  be  hatched.  It  looked  like  Boston 
brown  bread,  but  I  examined  it  and  found  it  to  be 
a  mass  of  dark  brown  pollen,  quite  soft  and  pasty. 
In  fact  it  was  unleavened  bread,  and  had  not  been 
got  at  the  baker's.  A  few  weeks  later,  if  no  acci- 
dent befell  her,  she  had  a  good  working  colony  of 
a  dozen  or  more  bees. 

This  was  not  an  unusual  incident.  Our  bumble- 
bee, so  far  as  I  have  observed,  invariably  appropri- 
ates a  mouse-nest  for  the  site  of  its  colony,  never 
excavating  a  place  in  the  ground,  nor  conveying 
materials  for  a  nest,  to  be  lined  with  wax,  like  the 
European  species.  Many  other  of  our  wild  crea- 
tures take  up  with  the  leavings  of  their  betters  or 
strongers.  Neither  the  skunk  nor  the  rabbit  digs 
his  own  hole,  but  takes  up  with  that  of  a  wood- 
chuck,  or  else  hunts  out  a  natural  den  among  the 


NOTES    BY   THE    WAY  L55 

rocks.  In  England  the  rabbit  burrows  in  the 
ground  to  such  an  extent  that  in  places  the  earth  La 
honeycombed  by  them, 'and  the  walker  steps  through 
the  surface  into  their  galleries.  Our  white-footed 
mouse  has  been  known  to  take  up  his  abode  in  a 
hornet's  nest,  furnishing  the  interior  to  suit  his 
taste.  A  few  of  our  birds  also  avail  themselves  of 
the  work  of  others,  as  the  titmouse,  the  brown 
creeper,  the  bluebird,  and  the  house  wren.  But 
in  every  case  they  refurnish  the  tenement:  the 
wren  carries  feathers  into  the  cavity  excavated  by 
the  woodpeckers,  the  bluebird  carries  in  fine  straws, 
and  the  chickadee  lays  down  a  fine  wool  mat  upon 
the  floors.  When  the  high-hole  occupies  the  same 
cavity  another  year,  he  deepens  and  enlarges  it: 
the  phoebe-bird,  in  taking  up  her  old  nest,  puts  in 
a  new  lining;  so  does  the  robin;  but  cases  of  reoc- 
cupancy  of  an  old  nest  by  the  last-named  birds  are 
rare. 

A    BOLD   LEAPER 

One  reason,  doubtless,  why  squirrels  are  so  bold 
and  reckless  in  leaping  through  the  trees  is,  that,  if 
they  miss  their  hold  and  fall,  they  sustain  no  injury. 
Every  species  of  tree-squirrel  seems  to  be  capable 
of  a  sort  of  rudimentary  flying,  — at  least  of  making 
itself  into  a  parachute,  so  as  to  ease  or  break  a  fall 
or  a  leap  from  a  great  height.  The  so-called  Hying 
squirrel  does  this  the  most  perfectly.  It  opens  its 
furry  vestments,  leaps  into  the  air,  and  sails  down 
the  steep  incline  from  the  top  of  one  tree  to  the 
foot  of  the  next  as  lightly  as  a  bird.      Bui   othei 


156  PEPACTON 

squirrels  know  the  same  trick,  only  their  coat-skirts 
are  not  so  broad.  One  day  my  dog  treed  a  red 
squirrel  in  a  tall  hickory  that  stood  in  a  meadow 
on  the  side  of  a  steep  hill.  To  see  what  the  squir- 
rel would  do  when  closely  pressed,  I  climbed  the 
tree.  As  I  drew  near  he  took  refuge  in  the  top- 
most branch,  and  then,  as  I  came  on,  he  boldly 
leaped  into  the  air,  spread  himself  out  upon  it,  and, 
with  a  quick,  tremulous  motion  of  his  tail  and  legs, 
descended  quite  slowly  and  landed  upon  the  ground 
thirty  feet  below  me,  apparently  none  the  worse  for 
the  leap,  for  he  ran  with  great  speed  and  escaped 
the  dog  in  another  tree. 

A  recent  American  traveler  in  Mexico  gives  a  still 
more  striking  instance  of  this  power  of  squirrels  par- 
tially to  neutralize  the  force  of  gravity  when  leaping 
or  falling  through  the  air.     Some  boys  had  caught  a 
Mexican  black  squirrel,  nearly  as  large  as  a  cat.      It 
had  escaped  from  them  once,  and,  when  pursued,  had 
taken  a  leap  of  sixty  feet,  from  the  top  of  a  pine-tree 
down  upon  the  roof  of  a  house,  without  injury.    This 
feat  had  led  the  grandmother  of  one  of  the  boys  to 
declare  that  the  squirrel  was  bewitched,  and  the  boys 
proposed  to  put  the  matter  to  further  test  by  throw- 
ing the  squirrel  down  a  precipice  six  hundred  feet 
high.     Our  traveler  interfered,  to  see  that  the  squir- 
rel had  fair  play.      The  prisoner  was  conveyed  in  a 
pillow-slip   to  the  edge   of  the   cliff,    and  the  slip 
opened,  so  that  he  might  have  his  choice,  whether  to 
remain  a  captive  or  to  take  the  leap.      He  looked 
down  the  awful  abyss,  and  then  back  and  sidewise, 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAV  L57 

—  his  eyes  glistening,  his  form  crouchin  Seeing 
no  escape  in  any  other  direction,  "he  took  a  flying 
leap  into  space,  and  fluttered  rather  than  fell  into 
the  abyss  below.  His  legs  began  to  work  like 
those  of  a  swimming  poodle-dog,  but  quicker  and 
quicker,  while  his  tail,  slightly  elevated,  spread  out 
like  a  feather  fan.  A  rabbit  of  the  sain.-  weighl 
would  have  made  the  trip  in  about  twelve  second.-, 
the  squirrel  protracted  it  for  more  than  half  a 
minute,"  and  "landed  on  a  ledge  of  limestone, 
where  we  could  see  him  plainly  squat  on  his  hind 
legs  and  smooth  his  ruffled  fur,  after  which  he 
made  for  the  creek  with  a  flourish  of  his  tail,  took 
a  good  drink,  and  scampered  away  into  the  willow 
thicket." 

The  story  at  first  blush  seems  incredible,  but  I 
have  no  doubt  our  red  squirrel  would  have  made 
the  leap  safely;  then  why  not  the  great  black  squir- 
rel, since  its  parachute  would  be  proportionate  lv 
large  1 

The  tails  of  the  squirrels  are  broad  and  long  and 
flat,  not  short  and  small  like  those  of  gophers,  chip- 
munks, woodchucks,  and  other  ground  rodents,  and 
when  they  leap  or  fall  through  the  air  the  tail  is 
arched  and  rapidly  vibrates.  A  squirrel's  tail,  there- 
fore, is  something  more  than  ornament,  something 
more  than  a  flag;  it  not  only  aids  him  in  flying, 
but  it  serves  as  a  cloak,  which  Ik-  wraps  about  him 
when  he  sleeps.  Thus,  some  animals  put  their  tails 
to  various  uses,  while  others  seem  to  have  no  use 
for  them  whatever.    AVhat  use  for  a  tail  has  a  wood- 


158  PEPACTON 

chuck,  or  a  weasel,  or  a  mouse?  Has  not  the  mouse 
yet  learned  that  it  could  get  in  its  hole  sooner  if 
it  had  no  tail  1  The  mole  and  the  meadow  mouse 
have  very  short  tails.  Rats,  no  doubt,  put  their 
tails  to  various  uses.  The  rabbit  has  no  use  for  a 
tail,  — it  would  be  in  its  way;  while  its  manner  of 
sleeping  is  such  that  it  does  not  need  a  tail  to  tuck 
itself  up  with,  as  do  the  coon  and  the  fox.  The 
dog  talks  with  his  tail;  the  tail  of  the  possum  is 
prehensile;  the  porcupine  uses  his  tail  in  climbing 
and  for  defense;  the  beaver  as  a  tool  or  trowel; 
while  the  tail  of  the  skunk  serves  as  a  screen  behind 
which  it  masks  its  terrible  battery. 

THE   WOODCHUCK 

Writers  upon  rural  England  and  her  familiar 
natural  history  make  no  mention  of  the  marmot  or 
woodchuck.  In  Europe  this  animal  seems  to  be 
confined  to  the  high  mountainous  districts,  as  on 
our  Pacific  slope,  burrowing  near  the  snow  line.  It 
is  more  social  or  gregarious  than  the  American  spe- 
cies, living  in  large  families  like  our  prairie  dog. 
In  the  Middle  and  Eastern  States  our  woodchuck 
takes  the  place,  in  some  respects,  of  the  English 
rabbit,  burrowing  in  ever}7  hillside  and  under  every 
stone  wall  and  jutting  ledge  and  large  bowlder,  from 
whence  it  makes  raids  upon  the  grass  and  clover 
and  sometimes  upon  the  garden  vegetables.  It  is 
quite  solitary  in  its  habits,  seldom  more  than  one 
inhabiting  the  same  den,  unless  it  be  a  mother  and 
her  young.      It  is  not  now  so  much  a  ivoodchuck 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAV  L59 

as  a  jiehlclmck.  Occasionally,  however,  one  seems 
to  prefer  the  woods,  and  is  not  seduced  by  the 
sunny  slopes  and  the  succulent  grass,  hut  feeds,  as 
did  his  fathers  before  him,  upon  roots  and  twi 
the  bark  of  young  trees,  and  upon  various  wood 
plants. 

One  summer  day,  as  I  was  swimming  across  a 
broad,  deep  pool  in  the  creek  in  a  secluded  place  in 
the  woods,  I  saw  one  of  these  sylvan  chucks  amid 
the  rocks  but  a  few  feet  from  the  edge  of  the  water 
where  I  proposed  to  touch.  He  saw  my  approach, 
but  doubtless  took  me  for  some  water-fowl,  or  for 
some  cousin  of  his  of  the  muskrat  tribe;  foi  he 
went  on  with  his  feeding,  and  regarded  me  not  till 
I  paused  within  ten  feet  of  him  and  lifted  myself 
up.  Then  he  did  not  know  me,  having,  perhaps, 
never  seen  Adam  in  his  simplicity,  but  he  twisted 
his  nose  around  to  catch  my  scent;  and  the  momenl 
he  had  done  so  he  sprang  like  a  jumping-jack  and 
rushed  into  his  den  with  the  utmost  precipitation. 

The  woodchuck  is  the  true  serf  among  our  ani- 
mals; he  belongs  to  the  soil,  and  savors  of  it.  He 
is  of  the  earth,  earthy.  There  is  generally  a  de- 
cided odor  about  his  dens  and  lurking  places,  but 
it  is  not  at  all  disagreeable  in  the  clover-scented  air; 
and  his  shrill  whistle,  as  he  takes  to  his  hole  or 
defies  the  farm  dog  from  the  interior  of  the  stone 
wall,  is  a  pleasant  summer  sound.  In  form  and 
movement  the  woodchuck  is  not  captivating.  Ki« 
body  is  heavy  and  flabby.  Indeed,  such  a  flaccid, 
fluid,  pouchy  carcass  I  have  never  before  seen.       1 


160  PEPACTON 

has  absolutely  no  muscular  tension  or  rigidity,  but 
is  as  baggy  and  shaky  as  a  skin  filled  with  water. 
Let  the  rifleman  shoot  one  while  it  lies  basking  on 
a  sideling  rock,  and  its  body  slumps  off,  and  rolls 
and  spills  down  the  hill,  as  if  it  were  a  mass  of 
bowels  only.  The  legs  of  the  woodchuck  are  short 
and  stout,  and  made  for  digging  rather  than  run- 
ning. The  latter  operation  he  performs  by  short 
leaps,  his  belly  scarcely  clearing  the  ground.  For 
a  short  distance  he  can  make  very  good  time,  but 
he  seldom  trusts  himself  far  from  his  hole,  and, 
when  surprised  in  that  predicament,  makes  little 
effort  to  escape,  but,  grating  his  teeth,  looks  the 
danger  squarely  in  the  face. 

I  knew  a  farmer  in  New  York  wrho  had  a  very 
large  bob-tailed  churn-dog  by  the  name  of  Cuff. 
The  farmer  kept  a  large  dairy  and  made  a  great 
deal  of  butter,  and  it  was  the  business  of  Cuff  to 
spend  nearly  the  half  of  each  summer  day  treading 
the  endless  round  of  the  churning- machine.  Dur- 
ing the  remainder  of  the  day  he  had  plenty  of  time 
to  sleep  and  rest,  and  sit  on  his  hips  and  survey 
the  landscape.  One  day,  sitting  thus,  he  discovered 
a  woodchuck  about  forty  rods  from  the  house,  on  a 
steep  sidehill,  feeding  about  near  his  hole,  which 
was  beneath  a  large  rock.  The  old  dog,  forgetting 
his  stiffness,  and  remembering  the  fun  he  had  had 
with  woodchucks  in  his  earlier  days,  started  off  at 
his  highest  speed,  vainly  hoping  to  catch  this  one 
before  he  could  get  to  his  hole.  But  the  wood- 
chuck   seeing   the  dog  come    laboring  up  the  hill, 


NOTES    BY    THE   WAY  1C1 

sprang  to  the  mouth  of  his  den,  ami,  when  hia  pur- 
suer was  only  a  few  rods  off,  whistled  tauntingly 
and  went  in.  This  occurred  several  times,  the  old 
dog  marching  up  the  hill,  and  then  marching  down 
again,  having  had  his  labor  for  his  pains.  I  sus- 
pect that  he  revolved  the  subject  in  his  mind  while 
he  revolved  the  great  wheel  of  the  churning-ma- 
chine,  and  that  some  turn  or  other  brought  him  a 
happy  thought,  for  next  time  he  showed  himself 
a  strategist.  Instead  of  giving  chase  to  the  wood- 
chuck,  when  first  discovered,  he  crouched  down  to 
the  ground,  and,  resting  his  head  on  his  paws, 
watched  him.  The  woodchuck  kept  working  away 
from  his  hole,  lured  by  the  tender  clover,  but,  not 
unmindful  of  his  safety,  lifted  himself  up  on  his 
haunches  every  few  moments  and  surveyed  the 
approaches.  Presently,  after  the  woodchuck  had 
let  himself  down  from  one  of  these  attitudes  of 
observation  and  resumed  his  feeding,  Cull'  started 
swiftly  but  stealthily  up  the  hill,  precisely  in  the 
attitude  of  a  cat  when  she  is  stalking  a  bird.  When 
the  woodchuck  rose  up  again,  Cull'  was  perfectly 
motionless  and  half  hid  by  the  grass.  When  he 
again  resumed  his  clover,  Cuff  sped  up  the  hill 
before,  this  time  crossing  a  fence,  but  in  a  low- 
place,  and  so  nimbly  that  he  was  not  discovered. 
Again  the  woodchuck  was  on  the  outlook,  again 
Cuff  was  motionless  and  hugging  the  ground.  \- 
the  dog  neared  his  victim  he  was  partially  hidden  by 
a  swell  in  the  earth,  but  still  the  woodchuck  from 
his  outlook  reported  "All  right,"  when  Cull*,  having 


162  PEPACTON 

not  twice  as  far  to  run  as  the  chuck,  threw  all 
stealthiness  aside  and  rushed  directly  for  the  hole. 
At  that  moment  the  woodchuck  discovered  his  dan- 
ger, and,  seeing  that  it  was  a  race  for  life,  leaped  as 
I  never  saw  marmot  leap  before.  But  he  was  two 
seconds  too  late,  his  retreat  was  cut  off,  and  the  pow- 
erful jaws  of  the  old  dog  closed  upon  him. 

The  next  season  Cuff  tried  the  same  tactics  again 
with  like  success,  but  when  the  third  woodchuck 
had  taken  up  his  abode  at  the  fatal  hole,  the  old 
churner's  wits  and  strength  had  begun  to  fail  him, 
and  he  was  baffled  in  each  attempt  to  capture  the 
animal. 

The  woodchuck  always  burrows  on  a  sidehill. 
This  enables  him  to  guard  against  being  drowned 
out,  by  making  the  termination  of  the  hole  higher 
than  the  entrance.  He  digs  in  slantingly  for  about 
two  or  three  feet,  then  makes  a  sharp  upward  turn 
and  keeps  nearly  parallel  with  the  surface  of  the 
ground  for  a  distance  of  eight  or  ten  feet  farther, 
according  to  the  grade.  Here  he  makes  his  nest 
and  passes  the  winter,  holing  up  in  October  or  No- 
vember and  coming  out  again  in  April.  This  is 
a  long  sleep,  and  is  rendered  possible  only  by  the 
amount  of  fat  with  which  the  system  has  become 
stored  during  the  summer.  The  fire  of  life  still 
burns,  but  very  faintly  and  slowly,  as  with  the 
draughts  all  closed  and  the  ashes  heaped  up.  Ees- 
piration  is  continued,  but  at  longer  intervals,  and 
all  the  vital  processes  are  nearly  at  a  standstill. 
Dig  one  out  during  hibernation  (Audubon  did  so), 


NOTES    BY    THE   WAY  168 

and  you  find  it  a  mere  inanimate  ball,  that  sufl 
itself  to  be  moved  and  rolled  about  without  showing 
signs  of  awakening.  But  bring  it  in  by  the  fire, 
and  it  presently  unrolls  and  opens  its  eyes,  and 
crawls  feebly  about,  and  if  left  to  itself  will  seek 
some  dark  hole  or  corner,  roll  itself  up  again,  and 
resume  its  former  condition. 

A   GOOD   SEASON    FOR   THE    BIBDS 

The  season  of  1880  seems  to  have  been  excep- 
tionally favorable  to  the  birds.  The  warm,  early 
spring,  the  absence  of  April  snows  and  of  long, 
cold  rains  in  May  and  June, — indeed,  the  excep- 
tional heat  and  dryness  of  these  months,  and  tin- 
freedom  from  violent  storms  and  tempests  through- 
out the  summer,  —  all  worked  together  for  the  good 
of  the  birds.  Their  nests  were  not  broken  up  or 
torn  from  the  trees,  nor  their  young  chilled  and 
destroyed  by  the  wet  and  the  cold.  The  drenching, 
protracted  rains  that  make  the  farmer's  seed  rot  or 
lie  dormant  in  the  ground  in  May  or  June,  and  the 
summer  tempests  that  uproot  the  trees  or  cause 
them  to  lash  and  bruise  their  foliage,  always  bring 
disaster  to  the  birds.  As  a  result  of  our  immunity 
from  these  things  the  past  season,  the  small  bird-  in 
the  fall  were  perhaps  never  more  abundant.  In- 
deed, I  never  remember  to  have  seen  so  many  ol 
certain  kinds,  notably  the  social  and  the  bush  spar- 
rows. The  latter  literally  swarmed  in  the  fields 
and  vineyards;  and  as  it  happened  that  for  the  first 
time  a  large  number  of  grapes  were  destroyed   by 


164  PEPACTON 

birds,  the  little  sparrow,  in  some  localities,  was 
accused  of  being  the  depredator.  But  he  is  inno- 
cent. He  never  touches  fruit  of  any  kind,  but 
lives  upon  seeds  and  insects.  What  attracted  this 
sparrow  to  the  vineyards  in  such  numbers  was 
mainly  the  covert  they  afforded  from  small  hawks, 
and  probably  also  the  seeds  of  various  weeds  that 
had  been  allowed  to  ripen  there.  The  grape-de- 
stroyer was  a  bird  of  another  color,  namely,  the 
Baltimore  oriole.  One  fruit-grower  on  the  Hudson 
told  me  he  lost  at  least  a  ton  of  grapes  by  the  birds, 
and  in  the  western  part  of  New  York  and  in  Ohio 
and  in  Canada,  I  hear  the  vineyards  suffered  severely 
from  the  depredations  of  the  oriole.  The  oriole 
has  a  sharp,  dagger-like  bill,  and  he  seems  to  be 
learning  rapidly  how  easily  he  can  puncture  fruit 
with  it.  He  has  come  to  be  about  the  worst  cherry 
bird  we  have.  He  takes  the  worm  first,  and  then 
he  takes  the  cherry  the  worm  was  after,  or  rather 
he  bleeds  it;  as  with  the  grapes,  he  carries  none 
away  with  him,  but  wounds  them  all.  He  is  wel- 
come to  all  the  fruit  he  can  eat,  but  why  should  he 
murder  every  cherry  on  the  tree,  or  every  grape  in 
the  cluster?  He  is  as  wanton  as  a  sheep-killing 
dog,  that  will  not  stop  with  enough,  but  slaughters 
every  ewe  in  the  flock.  The  oriole  is  peculiarly 
exempt  from  the  dangers  that  beset  most  of  our 
birds:  its  nest  is  all  but  impervious  to  the  rain,  and 
the  squirrel,  or  the  jay,  or  the  crow  cannot  rob  it 
without  great  difficulty.  It  is  a  pocket  which  it 
would  not  be  prudent  for  either  jay  or  squirrel  to 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAV  165 

attempt  to  explore  when  the  owner,  with  his  dag- 
ger-like beak,  was  about;  and  the  crow  cannot  alighl 
upon  the  slender,  swaying  branch  from  which  it 
usually  pendent.      Hence  the  orioles  are  doubtless 
greatly  on  the  increase. 

There  has  been  an  unusual  number  of  shrikes  the 
past  fall  and  winter;  like  the  hawks,  they  follow 
in  the  wake  of  the  little  birds  and  prey  upon  them. 
Some  seasons  pass  and  I  never  see  a  shrike.  This 
year  I  have  seen  at  least  a  dozen  while  passing  along 
the  road.  One  day  I  saw  one  carrying  its  prey  in 
its  feet,  —  a  performance  which  I  supposed  it  incapa- 
ble of,  as  it  is  not  equipped  for  this  business  like 
a  rapacious  bird,  but  has  feet  like  a  robin.  One 
wintry  evening,  near  sunset,  I  saw  one  alight  on 
the  top  of  a  tree  by  the  roadside,  with  some  small 
object  in  its  beak.  I  paused  to  observe  it.  Pres- 
ently it  flew  clown  into  a  scrubby  old  apple-tree, 
and  attempted  to  impale  the  object  upon  a  thorn  or 
twig.  It  was  occupied  in  this  way  some  moments, 
no  twig  or  knob  proving  quite  satisfactory.  A  little 
screech  owl  was  evidently  watching  the  proceedings 
from  his  doorway  in  the  trunk  of  a  decayed  apple- 
tree  ten  or  a  dozen  rods  distant.  Twilight  was  just 
falling,  and  the  owl  had  come  up  from  his  sung 
retreat  in  the  hollow  trunk,  and  was  waiting  for  the 
darkness  to  deepen  before  venturing  forth.  I  was 
first  advised  of  his  presence  by  seeing  him  approach- 
ing swiftly  on  silent,  level  wing.  The  Bhrike  did 
not  see  him  till  the  owl  was  almost  within  the 
branches.     He  then  dropped  his  game,  which  proved 


166  PEPACTON 

to  be  a  part  of  a  shrew-mouse,  and  darted  back  into 
the  thick  cover,  uttering  a  loud,  discordant  squawk, 
as  one  would  say,  "  Scat !  scat !  scat !  "  The  owl 
alighted,  and  was,  perhaps,  looking  about  him  for 
the  shrike's  impaled  game,  when  I  drew  near.  On 
seeing  me  he  reversed  his  movement  precipitately, 
flew  straight  back  to  the  old  tree,  and  alighted  in 
the  entrance  to  the  cavity.  As  I  approached,  he 
did  not  so  much  seem  to  move  as  to  diminish  in 
size,  like  an  object  dwindling  in  the  distance;  he 
depressed  his  plumage,  and,  with  his  eye  fixed  upon 
me,  began  slowly  to  back  and  sidle  into  his  retreat 
till  he  faded  from  my  sight.  The  shrike  wiped  his 
beak  upon  the  branches,  cast  an  eye  down  at  me 
and  at  his  lost  mouse,  and  then  flew  away.  He 
was  a  remarkably  fine  specimen,  —  his  breast  and 
under  parts  as  white  as  snow,  and  his  coat  of  black 
and  ashen  gray  appearing  very  bright  and  fresh. 
A  few  nights  afterward,  as  I  passed  that  way,  I 
saw  the  little  owl  again  sitting  in  his  doorway, 
waiting  for  the  twilight  to  deepen,  and  undisturbed 
by  the  passers-by;  but  when  I  paused  to  observe 
him,  he  saw  that  he  was  discovered,  and  he  slunk 
back  into  his  den  as  on  the  former  occasion. 

SHAKESPEARE'S    NATURAL   HISTORY 

It  is  surprising  that  so  profuse  and  prodigal  a 
poet  as  Shakespeare,  and  one  so  bold  in  his  dealings 
with  human  nature,  should  seldom  or  never  make 
a  mistake  in  his  dealings  with  physical  nature,  or 
take  an  unwarranted  liberty  with  her.      True  it  is 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAY  167 

that  his  allusions  to  nature  arc  always  incidental, 

never  his  main  purpose  or  theme,  as  with  many 
later  poets;  yet  his  accuracy  and  closeness  to  fact, 
and  his  wide  and  various  knowledge  of  unbookish 
things,  are  seen  in  his  light  "touch  and  go  "  phra 
and  comparisons  as  clearly  as  in  his  mure  deliberate 
and  central  work. 

In  "Much  Ado  about  Nothing,"  Benedick  says 
to  Margaret :  — 

"Thy  wit  is  as  quick  as  the  greyhound's  mouth  —  it  catches." 
One  marked  difference  between  the  greyhound  and 
all  other  hounds  and  dogs  is,  that  it  can  pick  up  its 
game  while  running  at  full  speed,  a  feat  that  no 
other  dog  can  do.  The  foxhound,  or  farm  dog,  will 
run  over  a  fox  or  a  rabbit  many  times  without  being 
able  to  seize  it. 

In  "Twelfth  Night"  the  clown  tells  Viola  that 

"Fools  are  as  like  husbands  as  pilchards  are  to  herrings  —  the 
husband  's  the  bigger." 

The  pilchard  closely  resembles  the  herring,  but  is 
thicker  and  heavier,  with  larger  scales. 

In  the  same  play,  Maria,  seeing  Malvolio  com- 
ing, says:  — 

"Here  comes  the  trout  that  must  be  caught  with  tickling." 

Shakespeare,  then,  knew  that  fact  so  well  known  t«» 
poachers,  and  known  also  to  many  an  American 
schoolboy,  namely,  that  a  trout  likes  to  be  tickled, 
or  behaves  as  if  he  did,  and  that  by  gently  tickling 
his  sides  and  belly  you  can  so  mesmerize  him,  as  it 
were,  that  he  will  allow  you   to   get    your   hands  in 


168  PEPACTON 

position  to  clasp  him  firmly.  The  British  poacher 
takes  the  jack  by  the  same  tactics:  he  tickles  the 
jack  on  the  belly ;  the  fish  slowly  rises  in  the  water 
till  it  comes  near  the  surface,  when,  the  poacher 
having  insinuated  both  hands  under  him,  he  is  sud- 
denly scooped  out  and  thrown  upon  the  land. 

Indeed,  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  known  inti- 
mately the  ways  and  habits  of  most  of  the  wild 
creatures  of  Britain.  He  had  the  kind  of  know- 
ledge of  them  that  only  the  countryman  has.  In 
"  As  You  Like  It, "  Jaques  tells  Amiens  :  — 
"I  can  suck  melancholy  out  of  a  song  as  a  weasel  sucks  eggs." 

Every  gamekeeper,  and  every  farmer  for  that 
matter,  knows  how  destructive  the  weasel  and  its 
kind  are  to  birds'  eggs,  and  to  the  eggs  of  game- 
birds  and  of  domestic  fowls. 

In  "Love's  Labor's  Lost,"  Biron  says  of 
Boyet :  — 

"  This  fellow  picks  up  wit  as  pigeons  peas." 

Pigeons  do  not  pick  up  peas  in  this  country,  but 
they  do  in  England,  and  are  often  very  damaging 
to  the  farmer  on  that  account.  Shakespeare  knew 
also  the  peculiar  manner  in  which  they  fed  their 
young,  —  a  manner  that  has  perhaps  given  rise  to 
the  expression  "sucking  dove."  In  "As  You  Like 
It  "  is  this  passage :  — 

"  Celia.   Here  comes  Monsieur  Le  Beau. 

"Rosalind.   With  his  mouth  full  of  news. 

"  Celia.  Which  he  will  put  on  us  as  pigeons  feed  their  young. 

"Rosalind.   Then  shall  we  be  news-crammed." 

When  the  mother  pigeon  feeds  her  young  she  brings 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAV  169 

the  food,  not  in  her  beak  like  other  birds,  but  in 
her  crop;  she  places  her  beak  between  the  open 
mandibles  of  her  young,  and  fairly  crams  the  food, 
which  is  delivered  by  a  peculiar  pumping  move- 
ment, down  its  throat.  She  furnishes  a  capital  il- 
lustration of  the  eager,  persistent  newsmonger. 

"Out  of  their  burrows  like  rabbits  after  rain"  is 
a  comparison  that  occurs  in  "  Coriolanus. "  In  our 
Northern  or  New  England  States  we  should  have  to 
substitute  woodchucks  for  rabbits,  as  our  rabbits  <!<> 
not  burrow,  but  sit  all  day  in  their  forms  under  a 
bush  or  amid  the  weeds,  and  as  they  are  not  seen 
moving  about  after  a  rain,  or  at  all  by  day;  but  in 
England  Shakespeare's  line  is  exactly  descriptive. 

Says  Bottom  to  the  fairy  Cobweb  in  "Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream:  "  — 

"Mounsieur  Cobweb;  good  mounsieur,  get  you  your  weapon-, 
in  your  hand,  and  kill  me  a  red-hipp'd  humble-bee  on  the  top  of  a 
thistle,  and,  good  mounsieur,  bring  me  the  honey-bag." 

This  command  might  be  executed  in  this  country, 
for  we  have  the  "red-hipp'd  humble-bee ;  r>  and  we 
have  the  thistle,  and  there  is  no  more  likely  place 
to  look  for  the  humblebee  in  midsummer  than  on 
a  thistle-blossom. 

But  the  following  picture  of  a  "wet  spell*  is 
more  English  than  American :  — 

"The  ox  hath  therefore  stretch'd  his  yoke  in  vain. 
The  plowman  lust  his  sweat;  ami  the  preen  com 
Hath  rotted  ere  his  youth  attainM  a  beard; 
The  fold  stands  empty  in  the  drowned  field, 
And  crows  are  fatted  with  the  murrain  Bock." 

Shakespeare  knew  the  birds  and   wild  fowl,  ami 


170  PEPACTON 

knew  them  perhaps  as  a  hunter,  as  well  as  a  poet. 
At  least  this  passage  would  indicate  as  much :  — 

"  As  wild  geese  that  the  creeping  fowler  eye, 
Or  russet-pated  choughs,  many  in  sort, 
Rising  and  cawing  at  the  gun's  report, 
Sever  themselves  and  madly  sweep  the  sky." 

In  calling  the  choughs  "russet-pated"  he  makes 
the  bill  tinge  the  whole  head,  or  perhaps  gives  the 
effect  of  the  birds'  markings  when  seen  at  a  dis- 
tance; the  bill  is  red,  the  head  is  black.  The 
chough  is  a  species  of  crow. 

A  poet  must  know  the  birds  well  to  make  one  of 
his  characters  say,  when  he  had  underestimated  a 
man,  "I  took  this  lark  for  a  bunting,"  as  Lafeu 
says  of  Parolles  in  "All 's  Well  that  Ends  Well." 
The  English  bunting  is  a  field-bird  like  the  lark, 
and  much  resembles  the  latter  in  form  and  color, 
but  is  far  inferior  as  a  songster.  Indeed,  Shake- 
speare shows  his  familiarity  with  nearly  all  the 
British  birds. 

"  The  ousel-cock,  so  black  of  hue, 
With  orange-tawny  bill, 
The  throstle  with  his  note  so  true, 
The  wren  with  little  quill. 

"  The  finch,  the  sparrow,  and  the  lark, 
The  plain-song  cuckoo  gray, 
Whose  note  full  many  a  man  doth  mark, 
And  dares  not  answer  nay." 

In  "  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  "  we  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  lapwing :  — 

'  For  look  where  Beatrice,  like  a  lapwing,  runs 
Close  by  the  ground,  to  hear  our  conference." 


NOTES   BY   THE    WAY  171 

The  lapwing  is  a  kind  of  plover,  and  is  very  Bwift 
of  foot.  "When  trying  to  avoid  being  seen  they 
run  rapidly  with  depressed  heads,  or  "close  l>y  tin- 
ground,"  as  the  poet  puts  it.  In  the  same  scene, 
Hero  says  of  Ursula  :  — 

"  I  know  her  spirits  are  as  coy  and  wild 
As  haggards  of  the  rock." 

The  haggard  falcon  is  a  species  of  hawk  found  in 
North  Wales  and  in  Scotland.  It  breeds  on  high 
shelving  cliffs  and  precipitous  rocks.  Had  Shake- 
speare been  an  "amateur  poacher"  in  his  youth? 
He  had  a  poacher's  knowledge  of  the  wild  creatures. 
He  knew  how  fresh  the  snake  appeared  after  it  had 
cast  its  skin;  how  the  hedgehog  makes  himself  up 
into  a  ball  and  leaves  his  "prickles"  in  whatever 
touches  him;  how  the  butterfly  came  from  the  grub: 
how  the  fox  carries  the  goose;  where  the  squirrel 
hides  his  store;   where  the   martlet  builds  its  nest, 

etc. 

"  Now  is  the  woodcock  near  the  gin," 

says  Fabian,  in  "Twelfth  Night,"  and 

"Stalk  on,  stalk  on;  the  fowl  sits," 

says  Claudio  to  Leonato,  in  "Much  Ado." 

"  Instruct  thee  how 
To  snare  the  nimble  marmozet," 

says  Caliban,  in  "The  Tempest."  Sings  the  fool 
in  "Lear:  "  — 

"The  hedge-sparrow  fed  the  cuckoo  so  lon^ 
That  it  's  had  it  head  bit  off  by  it  yono 

The  hedge-sparrow  is  one  of  the  favorite  birds  upon 


172  PEPACTON 

which  the  European  cuckoo  imposes  the  rearing  of 

its   young.      If   Shakespeare   had   made    the    house 

sparrow,  or  the  blackbird,  or  the  bunting,  or  any  of 

the  granivorous,  hard-billed  birds,  the  foster- parent 

of  the  cuckoo,  his  natural  history  would  have  been 

at  fault. 

Shakespeare    knew   the   flowers,    too,    and   knew 

their  times  and  seasons :  — 

"  When  daisies  pied,  and  violets  blue, 
And  lady  smocks  all  silver-white, 
And  cuckoo-buds  of  yellow  hue, 

Do  paint  the  meadows  with  delight." 

They  have,  in  England,  the  cuckoo-flower,  which 
comes  in  April  and  is  lilac  in  color,  and  the  cuckoo- 
pint,  which  is  much  like  our  "Jack  in  the  pulpit ;,; 
but  the  poet  does  not  refer  to  either  of  these  (if  he 
did  we  would  catch  him  tripping),  but  to  butter- 
cups, which  are  called  by  rural  folk  in  Britain 
"  cuckoo-buds. " 

In  England  the  daffodil  blooms  in  February  and 
March;  the  swallow  comes  in  April  usually;  hence 
the  truth  of  Shakespeare's  lines:  — 

"  Daffodils, 
That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty." 

The  only  flaw  I  notice  in  Shakespeare's  natural 
history  is  in  his  treatment  of  the  honey-bee,  but 
this  was  a  flaw  in  the  knowledge  of  the  times  as 
well.  The  history  of  this  insect  was  not  rightly 
read  till  long  after  Shakespeare  wrote.  He  pictures 
a  colony  of  bees  as  a  kingdom,  with 

"A  king  and  officers  of  sorts," 


NOTES    BY    THE    WAY  17:; 

(see  "Henry  V."),  whereas  a  colony  of  bees  is  an 
absolute  democracy;  the  rulers  and  governors  and 
"  officers  of  sorts  "  are  the  workers,  the  masses,  the 
common  people.  A  strict  regard  to  fact  also  would 
spoil  those  fairy  tapers  in  "Midsummer  Night's 
Dream, "  — 

"  The  honey-bags  steal  from  the  humble-bees, 
And,  for  night-tapers,  crop  their  waxen  thighs, 
And  light  them  at  the  fiery  glow-worm's  <vis,"  — 

since  it  is  not  wax  that  bees  bear  upon  their  thighs, 
but  pollen,  the  dust  of  the  flowers,  with  which  bees 
make  their  bread.      Wax  is  made  from  honey. 

The  science  or  the  meaning  is  also  a  little  obscure 
in  this  phrase,  which  occurs  in  one  of  the  plays :  — 

"  One  heat  another  heat  expels  "  — 
as  one  nail  drives  out  another,  or  as  one  love  cures 
another. 

In  a  passage  in  "The  Tempest"  he  speaks  of  the 
ivy  as  if  it  were  parasitical,  like  the  mistletoe :  — 

"  Now,  he  was 
The  ivy  which  had  hid  my  princely  trunk, 
And  sucked  my  verdure  out  on't." 

I  believe  it  is  not  a  fact  that  the  ivy  sucks  the  juice 
out  of  the  trees  it  climbs  upon,  though  it  may  much 
interfere  with  their  growth.  Its  aerial  rootlets  are 
for  support  alone,  as  in  the  case  with  all  climb 
that  are  not  twiners.  But  this  may  perhapa  be 
regarded  as  only  a  poetic  license  on  the  part  of 
Shakespeare;  the  human  ivy  he  was  picturing  no 
doubt  fed  upon  the  tree  that  supported  it,  whether 
the  real  ivy  does  or  not. 


174  PEPACTON 

It  is  also  probably  untrue  that 

"  The  poor  beetle  that  we  tread  upon, 
In  corporal  sufferance  finds  a  pang  as  great 
As  when  a  giant  dies," 

though  it  has  suited  the  purpose  of  other  poets  be- 
sides Shakespeare  to  say  so.  The  higher  and  more 
complex  the  organization  the  more  acute  the  pleas- 
ure and  the  pain.  A  toad  has  been  known  to  live 
for  days  with  the  upper  part  of  its  head  cut  away 
by  a  scythe,  and  a  beetle  will  survive  for  hours 
upon  the  fisherman's  hook.  It  perhaps  causes  a 
grasshopper  less  pain  to  detach  one  of  its  legs  than 
it  does  a  man  to  remove  a  single  hair  from  his 
beard.  Nerves  alone  feel  pain,  and  the  nervous 
system  of  a  beetle  is  a  very  rudimentary  affair. 

In  "  Coriolanus "  there  is  a  comparison  which 
implies  that  a  man  can  tread  upon  his  own  shadow, 
—  a  difficult  feat  in  northern  countries  at  all  times 
except  midday;  Shakespeare  is  particular  to  men- 
tion the  time  of  day :  — 

"  Such  a  nature, 
Tickled  with  good  success,  disdains  the  shadow 
Which  he  treads  on  at  noon." 


VI 

FOOTPATHS      • 

A    N  intelligent  English  woman,  spending  a  few 
*»      years  in  this  country  with  her  family,  says 
that  one  of  her  serious  disappointments  is  that  she 
finds  it  utterly  impossible  to  enjoy  nature   here  as 
she  can  at  home  —  so  much  nature  as  we  have  and 
yet  no  way  of  getting  at  it;  no  paths,  or  byways, 
or  stiles,  or  foot-bridges,  no  provision  for  the  pedes- 
trian outside  of  the  public  road.      One  would  think 
the  people  had  no  feet  and  legs  in  this  country,  or 
else  did  not  know  how  to  use  them.      Last  Bummei 
she  spent  the  season  near  a  small  rural  village   in 
the  valley  of  the  Connecticut,  but  it  seemed  as  if 
she  had  not  been   in  the   country:    she   could    not 
come  at  the  landscape;  she  could  not  reach  a  wood 
or  a  hill  or  a  pretty  nook  anywhere  withoul   being 
a  trespasser,  or  getting  entangled  in   swamps   oi  in 
fields    of    grass    and    grain,    or    having    hei   com 
blocked  by  a  high  and  difficult  fence;   no   private 
ways,  no  grassy  lanes;  nobody  walking  in  the  fields 
or  woods,   nobody  walking  anywhere  for  pleasure, 
but  everybody  in  carriages  or  wagons. 

She  was  stopping  a  mile  from  the  village,   and 

every  day  used  to  walk  down  to  the  post-office  for 


176  PEPACTON 

her  mail;  but  instead  of  a  short  and  pleasant  cut 
across  the  fields,  as  there  would  have  been  in  Eng- 
land, she  was  obliged  to  take  the  highway  and  face 
the  dust  and  the  mud  and  the  staring  people  in 
their  carriages. 

She  complained,  also,  of  the  absence  of  bird  voices, 
—  so  silent  the  fields  and  groves  and  orchards  were, 
compared  with  what  she  had  been  used  to  at  home. 
The  most  noticeable  midsummer  sound  everywhere 
was  the  shrill,  brassy  crescendo  of  the  locust. 

All  this  is  unquestionably  true.  There  is  far 
less  bird  music  here  than  in  England,  except  possi- 
bly in  May  and  June,  though,  if  the  first  impres- 
sions of  the  Duke  of  Argyle  are  to  be  trusted,  there 
is  much  less  even  then.  The  duke  says:  "Although 
I  was  in  the  woods  and  fields  of  Canada  and  of  the 
States  in  the  richest  moments  of  the  spring,  I  heard 
little  of  that  burst  of  song  which  in  England  comes 
from  the  blackcap,  and  the  garden  warbler,  and  the 
whitethroat,  and  the  reed  warbler,  and  the  common 
wren,  and  (locally)  from  the  nightingale."  Our 
birds  are  more  withdrawn  than  the  English,  and 
their  notes  more  plaintive  and  intermittent.  Yet 
there  are  a  few  days  here  early  in  May,  when  the 
house  wren,  the  oriole,  the  orchard  starling,  the 
kingbird,  the  bobolink,  and  the  wood  thrush  first 
arrive,  that  are  so  full  of  music,  especially  in  the 
morning,  that  one  is  loath  to  believe  there  is  any- 
thing fuller  or  finer  even  in  England.  As  walkers, 
and  lovers  of  rural  scenes  and  pastimes,  we  do  not 
approach  our  British  cousins.      It  is  a  seven  days' 


FOOTPATHS  177 

wonder  to  see  anybody  walking  in  tin-  country 
except  on  a  wager  or  in  a  public  hall  or  skating- 
rink,  as  an  exhibition  and  trial  of  endurance. 

Countrymen  do  not  walk  except  from  necessity, 
and  country  women  walk  far  less  than  their  city 
sisters.  When  city  people  come  to  the  country 
they  do  not  walk,  because  that  would  be  conceding 
too  much  to  the  country;  beside,  they  would  soil 
their  shoes  and  would  lose  the  awe  and  respect 
which  their  imposing  turn-outs  inspire.  Then  they 
find  the  country  dull;  it  is  like  water  or  milk  after 
champagne;  they  miss  the  accustomed  stimulus, 
both  mind  and  body  relax,  and  walking  is  too  great 
an  effort. 

There  are  several  obvious  reasons  why  the  Eng- 
lish should  be  better  or  more  habitual  walkers  than 
we  are.  Taken  the  year  round,  their  climate  is 
much  more  favorable  to  exercise  in  the  open  air. 
Their  roads  are  better,  harder,  and  smoother,  and 
there  is  a  place  for  the  man  and  a  place  for  the 
horse.  Their  country  houses  and  churches  and 
villages  are  not  strung  upon  the  highway  as  ours 
are,  but  are  nestled  here  and  there  with  reference 
to  other  things  than  convenience  in  "getting  out." 
Hence    the    grassy    lanes    and    paths    through    the 

fields. 

Distances  are  not  so  great  in  that  country;  the 
population  occupies  less  space.  A-gain,  the  laud 
has  been  longer  occupied  and  is  more  thoroughly 
subdued;  it  is  easier  to  get  about  the  fields;  lif<' 
has  flowed  in  the  same  channels  for  centui .  The 


178  PEPACTON 

English  landscape  is  like  a  park,  and  is  so  thor- 
oughly rural  and  mellow  and  bosky  that  the  tempta- 
tion to  walk  amid  its  scenes  is  ever  present  to  one. 
In  comparison,  nature  here  is  rude,  raw,  and  forbid- 
ding; has  not  that  maternal  and  beneficent  look,  is 
less  mindful  of  man,  runs  to  briers  and  weeds  or  to 
naked  sterility. 

Then  as  a  people  the  English  are  a  private, 
domestic,  homely  folk:  they  dislike  publicity,  dis- 
like the  highway,  dislike  noise,  and  love  to  feel  the 
grass  under  their  feet.  They  have  a  genius  for 
lanes  and  footpaths;  one  might  almost  say  they 
invented  them.  The  charm  of  them  is  in  their 
books;  their  rural  poetry  is  modeled  upon  them. 
How  much  of  Wordsworth's  poetry  is  the  poetry  of 
pedestrianism !  A  footpath  is  sacred  in  England; 
the  king  himself  cannot  close  one ;  the  courts  recog- 
nize them  as  something  quite  as  important  and 
inviolable  as  the  highway. 

A  footpath  is  of  slow  growth,  and  it  is  a  wild, 
shy  thing  that  is  easily  scared  away.  The  plow 
must  respect  it,  and  the  fence  or  hedge  make  way 
for  it.  It  requires  a  settled  state  of  things,  un- 
changing habits  among  the  people,  and  long  tenure 
of  the  land;  the  rill  of  life  that  finds  its  way  there 
must  have  a  perennial  source,  and  flow  there  to- 
morrow and  the  next  day  and  the  next  century. 

When  I  was  a  youth  and  went  to  school  with  my 
brothers  we  had  a  footpath  a  mile  long.  On  going 
from  home  after  leaving  the  highway  there  was  a 
descent  through   a   meadow,    then  through  a  large 


FOOTPATHS  179 

maple  and  beech  wood,  then  through  a  long  stretch 
of  rather  barren  pasture  land  which  brought  lie  to 
the  creek  in  the  valley,  which  we  crossed  on  a  Blah 
or  a  couple  of  rails  from  the  near  fence;  then  more 
meadow  land  with  a  neglected  orchard,  and  then 
the  little  gray  schoolhouse  itself  toeing  the  high- 
way. In  winter  our  course  was  a  hard,  beaten  path 
in  the  snow  visible  from  afar,  and  in  summer  a 
well-defined  trail.  In  the  woods  it  wore  the  roots 
of  the  trees.  It  steered  for  the  gaps  or  low  places 
in  the  fences,  and  avoided  the  bogs  and  swamps  in 
the  meadow.  I  can  recall  yet  the  very  look,  tin- 
very  physiognomy  of  a  large  birch-tree  that  stood 
beside  it  in  the  midst  of  the  woods;  it  sometimes 
tripped  me  up  with  a  large  root  it  sent  ont  like  a 
foot.  Neither  do  I  forget  the  little  spring  run  near 
by  where  we  frequently  paused  to  drink,  and  gath- 
ered "crinkle"  root  (Dentaria)  in  the  early  sum- 
mer; nor  the  dilapidated  log  fence  that  was  the 
highway  of  the  squirrels;  nor  the  ledges  to  one 
side,  whence  in  early  spring  the  skunk  and  coon 
sallied  forth  and  crossed  our  path;  nor  the  gray, 
scabby  rocks  in  the  pasture;  nor  the  solitary  tn 
nor  the  old  weather-worn  stump;  no,  nor  the  creek 
in  which  I  plunged  one  winter  morning  in  attempt- 
ing to  leap  its  swollen  current.  But  the  path 
served  only  one  generation  of  school  children;  it 
faded  out  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  and  the  feet 
that  made  it  are  widely  scattered,  while  some  of 
them  have  found  the  path  that  leads  through  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow.      Almost   the  last  words  of 


180  PEPACTON 

one  of  these  schoolboys,  then  a  man  grown,  seemed 
as  if  he  might  have  had  this  very  path  in  mind,  and 
thought  himself  again  returning  to  his  father's 
house:  "I  must  hurry,"  he  said;  "I  have  a  long 
way  to  go  up  a  hill  and  through  a  dark  wood,  and 
it  will  soon  be  night." 

We  are  a  famous  people  to  go  "'cross  lots,"  but 
we  do  not  make  a  path,  or,  if  we  do,  it  does  not 
last;  the  scene  changes,  the  currents  set  in  other 
directions,  or  cease  entirely,  and  the  path  vanishes. 
In  the  South  one  would  find  plenty  of  bridle-paths, 
for  there  everybody  goes  horseback,  and  there  are 
few  passable  roads;  and  the  hunters  and  lumbermen 
of  the  North  have  their  trails  through  the  forest 
following  a  line  of  blazed  trees;  but  in  all  my 
acquaintance  with  the  country,  —  the  rural  and 
agricultural  sections,  — I  do  not  know  a  pleasant, 
inviting  path  leading  from  house  to  house,  or  from 
settlement  to  settlement,  by  which  the  pedestrian 
could  shorten  or  enliven  a  journey,  or  add  the  charm 
of  the  seclusion  of  the  fields  to  his  walk. 

What  a  contrast  England  presents  in  this  respect, 
according  to  Mr.  Jennings's  pleasant  book,  "Field 
Paths  and  Green  Lanes  "  !  The  pedestrian  may  go 
about  quite  independent  of  the  highway.  Here  is 
a  glimpse  from  his  pages:  "A  path  across  the  field, 
seen  from  the  station,  leads  into  a  road  close  by  the 
lodge  gate  of  Mr.  Cubett's  house.  A  little  beyond 
this  gate  is  another  and  smaller  one,  from  which  a 
narrow  path  ascends  straight  to  the  top  of  the  hill 
and  comes  out  just  opposite  the  post-office  on  Ran- 


FOOTPATHS  ]-l 

more  Common.  The  Common  at  another  point  may 
be  reached  by  a  shorter  cut.  After  entering  a  path 
close  by  the  lodge,  open  the  first  gate  you  come  to 
on  the  right  hand.  Cross  the  road,  go  through  the 
gate  opposite,  and  either  follow  the  road  right  out 
upon  Kanmore  Common,  past  the  beautiful  deep 
dell  or  ravine,  or  take  a  path  which  you  will  see  on 
your  left,  a  few  yards  from  the  gate.  This  winds 
through  a  very  pretty  wood,  witli  glimpses  of  the 
valley  here  and  there  on  the  way,  and  eventually 
brings  you  out  upon  the  carriage-drive  to  the  hoi, 
Turn  to  the  right  and  you  will  soon  find  yourself 
upon  the  Common.  A  road  or  path  opens  out  in 
front  of  the  upper  lodge  gate.  Follow  that  and  it 
will  take  you  to  a  small  piece  of  water  from  whence 
a  green  path  strikes  off  to  the  right,  and  this  will 
lead  you  all  across  the  Common  in  a  northerly  direc- 
tion," etc.  Thus  we  may  see  how  the  country  is 
threaded  with  paths.  A  later  writer,  the  author 
of  "The  Gamekeeper  at  Home"  and  other  books, 
says:  "Those  only  know  a  country  who  are  ac- 
quainted with  its  footpaths.  By  the  roads,  indeed, 
the  outside  may  be  seen;  but  the  footpaths  go 
through  the  heart  of  the  land.  There  are  routes 
by  which  mile  after  mile  may  be  traveled  without 
leaving  the  sward.  So  you  may  pass  from  vil! 
to  village;  now  crossing  green  meadows,  now  corn- 
fields, over  brooks,  past  woods,  through  farmyard 
and  rick  '  barken. '  " 

The  conditions  of  life   in  this  country  have   not 
been  favorable  to  the  development  of  byways,     \Y. 


182  PEPACTON 

do  not  take  to  lanes  and  to  the  seclusion  of  the 
fields.  We  love  to  be  upon  the  road,  and  to  plant 
our  houses  there,  and  to  appear  there  mounted  upon 
a  horse  or  seated  in  a  wagon.  It  is  to  be  distinctly- 
stated,  however,  that  our  public  highways,  with 
their  breadth  and  amplitude,  their  wide  grassy 
margins,  their  picturesque  stone  or  rail  fences,  their 
outlooks,  and  their  general  free  and  easy  character, 
are  far  more  inviting  to  the  pedestrian  than  the 
narrow  lanes  and  trenches  that  English  highways 
for  the  most  part  are.  The  road  in  England  is 
always  well  kept,  the  roadbed  is  often  like  a  rock, 
but  the  traveler's  view  is  shut  in  by  high  hedges, 
and  very  frequently  he  seems  to  be  passing  along 
a  deep,  nicely-graded  ditch.  The  open,  broad  land- 
scape character  of  our  highways  is  quite  unknown 
in  that  country. 

The  absence  of  the  paths  and  lanes  is  not  so 
great  a  matter,  but  the  decay  of  the  simplicity  of 
manners,  and  of  the  habits  of  pedestrianism  which 
this  absence  implies,  is  what  I  lament.  The  devil 
is  in  the  horse  to  make  men  proud  and  fast  and 
ill-mannered;  only  when  you  go  afoot  do  you  grow 
in  the  grace  of  gentleness  and  humility.  But  no 
good  can  come  out  of  this  walking  mania  that  is 
now  sweeping  over  the  country,  simply  because  it 
is  a  mania  and  not  a  natural  and  wholesome  impulse. 
It  is  a  prostitution  of  the  noble  pastime. 

It  is  not  the  walking  merely,  it  is  keeping  your- 
self in  tune  for  a  walk,  in  the  spiritual  and  bodily 
condition  in  which  you  can  find  entertainment  and 


FOOTPATHS  183 

exhilaration  in  so  simple  and  natural  a  pastime. 
You  are  eligible  to  any  good  fortune  when  you  are 
in  the  condition  to  enjoy  a  walk.  When  the  air 
and  water  tastes  sweet  to  you,  how  much  else  will 
taste  sweet!  When  the  exercise  of  your-  limbs 
affords  you  pleasure,  and  the  play  of  your  sen 
upon  the  various  objects  and  shows  of  nature,  quick- 
ens and  stimulates  your  spirit,  your  relation  to  the 
world  and  to  yourself  is  what  it  should  be,  — simple 
and  direct  and  wholesome.  The  mood  in  which 
you  set  out  on  a  spring  or  autumn  ramble  or  a 
sturdy  winter  walk,  and  your  greedy  feel  have  to 
be  restrained  from  devouring  the  distances  too  f, 
is  the  mood  in  which  your  best  thoughts  and  im- 
pulses come  to  you,  or  in  which  you  might  embark 
upon  any  noble  and  heroic  enterprise.  Life  is 
sweet  in  such  moods,  the  universe  is  complete,  and 
there  is  no  failure  or  imperfection  anywhere. 


VII 

A   BUNCH   OF   HERBS 

FRAGRANT    WILD    FLOWERS 

rpHE  charge  that  was  long  ago  made  against  our 
-*-  wild  flowers  by  English  travelers  in  this  coun- 
try, namely,  that  they  were  odorless,  doubtless  had 
its  origin  in  the  fact  that,  whereas  in  England  tin- 
sweet-scented  flowers  are  among  the  most  common 
and  conspicuous,  in  this  country  they  are  rather  >hv 
and  withdrawn,  and  consequently  not  such  as  trav- 
elers would  be  likely  to  encounter.  Moreover,  tin- 
British  traveler,  remembering  the  deliciously  fra- 
grant blue  violets  he  left  at  home,  covering  every 
grassy  slope  and  meadow  bank  in  spring,  and  the 
wild  clematis,  or  traveler's  joy,  overrunning  hedj 
and  old  walls  with  its  white,  sweet-scented  1.; 
soms,  and  finding  the  corresponding  species  hi 
equally  abundant  but  entirely  scentless,  very  natu- 
rally inferred  that  our  wild  Bowers  were  all  deficient 
in  this  respect.  He  would  be  confirmed  in  this 
opinion  when,  on  turning  to  some  of  our  mosl  beau- 
tiful and  striking  native  flowers,  like  the  laurel,  the 
rhododendron,  the  columbine,  the  inimitable  frinj 
gentian,  the  burning  cardinal-flower,  or  our  asters 
and  goldenrod,  dashing  the   roadside)   with   tints  of 


186  PEPACTON 

purple  and  gold,  he  found  them  scentless  also. 
"Where  are  your  fragrant  flowers?"  he  might  well 
say;  "I  can  find  none."  Let  him  look  closer  and 
penetrate  our  forests,  and  visit  our  ponds  and  lakes. 
Let  him  compare  our  matchless,  rosy-lipped,  honey- 
hearted  trailing  arbutus  with  his  own  ugly  ground- 
ivy  ;  let  him  compare  our  sumptuous,  fragrant  pond- 
lily  with  his  own  odorless  Nymphcea  alba.  In  our 
Northern  woods  he  shall  find  the  floors  carpeted 
with  the  delicate  linnsea,  its  twin  rose-colored,  nod- 
ding flowers  filling  the  air  with  fragrance.  (I  am 
aware  that  the  lmnasa  is  found  in  some  parts  of 
Northern  Europe.)  The  fact  is,  we  perhaps  have 
as  many  sweet-scented  wild  flowers  as  Europe  has, 
only  they  are  not  quite  so  prominent  in  our  flora, 
nor  so  well  known  to  our  people  or  to  our  poets. 
Think  of  Wordsworth's  "Golden  Daffodils:  "  — 

"  I  wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud 

That  floats  on  high  o'er  vales  and  hills, 
When,  all  at  once,  I  saw  a  crowd, 

A  host  of  golden  daffodils, 
Beside  the  lake,  beneath  the  trees, 
Fluttering  and  dancing  in  the  breeze. 

"  Continuous  as  the  stars  that  shine 

And  twinkle  on  the  milky  way, 
They  stretched  in  never-ending  line 

Along  the  margin  of  a  bay. 
Ten  thousand  saw  I  at  a  glance, 
Tossing  their  heads  in  sprightly  dance." 

No  such  sight  could  greet  the  poet's  eye  here. 
He  might  see  ten  thousand  marsh  marigolds,  or  ten 
times  ten  thousand  houstonias,  but  they  would  not 


A    BUNCH    OF    HERBS  1  -7 

toss  in  the  breeze,  and  they  would  not  be  Bweet- 
scented  like  the  daffodils. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  too,  that  in  the  moi 
atmosphere  of  England  the  same  amount  of  fragrance 
would  be  much  more  noticeable  than  with  us. 
Think  how  our  sweet  bay,  or  our  pink  azalea,  or 
our  white  alder,  to  which  they  have  nothing  thai 
corresponds,  would  perfume  that  heavy,  vapor-laden 
air! 

In  the  woods  and  groves  in  England,    the   wild 
hyacinth  grows  very  abundantly  in  spring,  and   in 
places  the  air  is  loaded  with  its  fragrance.      In 
woods  a  species  of  dicentra,  commonly  called   squir- 
rel   corn,    has    nearly   the   same    perfume,    and    its 
racemes   of    nodding   whitish   flowers,    tinged    with 
red,   are  quite  as  pleasing  to  the  eye,   but    it    i- 
shyer,  less  abundant  plant.      When  our  children 
to  the  fields  in  April  and  May,  they  can  bring  home 
no  wild  flowers  as  pleasing  as   the   sweel    English 
violet,  and  cowslip,   and  yellow   daffodil,  and   wall- 
flower; and,  when  British  children  go  t.>  the  woods 
at  the  same  season,  they  can   load   their  hands  and 
baskets  with  nothing  that  compares  with  our  trail- 
ing arbutus,  or,  later  in  the  season,  with  our  azale 
and,  when  their  boys  go  fishing  or  boating  in  sum- 
mer,   they   can    wreathe    themselves   with    nothing 
that  approaches  our  pond-lily. 

There  are  upward   of   thirty  species  of   fragrant 
native  wild  flowers  and   flowering  shrubs  and  tn 
in  New  England  and   New   Fork,   and,    no   doubt, 
many  more  in  the  South   and  West,      My  list  is 
follows:  — 


188  PEPACTON 

White  violet  {Viola  blanda). 

Canada  violet  (  Viola  Canadensis). 

Hepatica  (occasionally  fragrant). 

Trailing  arbutus  (Ejngmt  repens). 

Mandrake  (Podophyllum peltatum). 

Yellow  lady's-slipper  (Cypripedium parvifiorum). 

Purple  lady's-slipper  (Cypripedium  acaule). 

Squirrel  corn  (Dicentra  Canadensis). 

Showy  orchis  (Orchis  spectabilis). 

Purple  fringed-orchis  (Habenaria  psy codes). 

Arethusa  (Arethusa  bulbosa). 

Calopogon  ( Calopogon pulchellus). 

Lady's-tresses  (Spiranthes  cernua). 

Pond-lily  (Nymph(ea  odorata). 

Wild  rose  (Rosa  nitida). 

Twin-flower  (Linncea  boreah's). 

Sugar  maple  (Acer  saccharinum). 

Linden  {Tilia  Americana). 

Locust-tree  (Robinia  pseudacacia). 

White  alder  (Clethra  alnifolia). 

Smooth  azalea  (Rhododendron  arborescens). 

White  azalea  (Rhododendron  viscosum). 

Pinxter-flower  (Rhododendron  nudiflorum). 

Yellow  azalea  (Rhododendron  calendulaceum). 

Sweet  bay  (Magnolia  glauca). 

Mitchella  vine  (Mitchella  repens). 

Sweet  coltsfoot  (Petasites palmata). 

Pasture  thistle  (Cnicus pumilus). 

False  wintergreen  {Pyrola  rotundifolia). 

Spotted  wintergreen  (Chimaphila  maculata). 

Prince's  pine  (Chimaphila  umbellata). 

Evening  primrose  (  Oenothera  biennis). 

Hairy  loosestrife  (Steironema  ciliatum). 

Dogbane  (Apocynum). 

Ground-nut  (Apios  tuberosa). 

Adder' s-tongue  pogonia  (Pogonia  ophioglossoides). 

Wild  grape  |  Vitis  cordofolia). 

Horned  bladderwort  (Utricularia  cornuta). 

The  last-named,  horned  bladderwort,  is  perhaps 
the  most  fragrant  flower  we  have.  In  a  warm, 
moist  atmosphere,  its  odor  is  almost  too  strong.  It 
is  a  plant  with  a  slender,  leafless  stalk  or  scape  less 


A    BUNCH    OF    HERB  189 

than  a  foot  high,  with  two  or  more  large  yellow 
hood  or  helmet  shaped  flowers.  Ii  is  doI  common, 
and  belongs  pretty  well  north,  growing  in  sandy 
swamps  and  along  the  marshy  margins  of  Lakes  and 
ponds.  Its  perfume  is  sweet  and  spicy  in  an  emi- 
nent degree.  I  have  placed  in  the  above  lisl  sev- 
eral flowers  that  are  intermittently  fragrant,  like 
the  hepatica,  or  liver-leaf.  This  flower  is  the  ear- 
liest, as  it  is  certainly  one  of  the  mosl  beautiful, 
to  be  found  in  our  woods,  and  occasionally  it  is 
fragrant.  Group  after  group  may  he  inspected, 
ranging  through  all  shades  of  purple  and  blue,  with 
some  perfectly  white,  and  no  odor  be  detected, 
when  presently  you  will  happen  upon  a  little  brood 
of  them  that  have  a  most  delicate  and  delicious  fra- 
grance. The  same  is  true  of  a  species  of  loosestrife 
growing  along  streams  and  on  other  wet  pla< 
with  tall  bushy  stalks,  dark  green  leaves,  and  pale 
axillary  yellow  flowers  (probably  European).  \ 
handful  of  these  flowers  will  sometimes  exhale  a 
sweet  fragrance;  at  other  times,  or  from  another 
locality,  they  are  scentless.  Our  evening  prim] 
is  thought  to  be  uniformly  sweet-scented,  but  the 
past  season  I  examined  many  specimens,  and  failed 
to  find  one  that  was  so.  Some  seasons  the 
maple  yields  much  sweeter  sap  than  at  others;  and 
even  individual  trees,  owing  to  the  roil,  moistui 
etc.,  where  they  stand,  show  a  great  difference  in 
this  respect.  The  Bame  is  doubtless  true  of  the 
sweet-scented  flowers.  I  had  always  supposed  that 
our  Canada  violet  —  the  tall,  leafy-stemmed   white 


190  PEPACTON 

violet  of  our  Northern  woods  —  was  odorless,   till 
a  correspondent  called  my  attention  to  the  contrary 
fact.      On  examination  I  found  that,  while  the  first 
ones  that  bloomed  about  May  25  had  very  sweet- 
scented    foliage,    especially    when    crushed    in    the 
hand,  the  flowers  were  practically  without  fragrance. 
But  as  the  season  advanced  the  fragrance  developed, 
till  a  single  flower  had  a  well-marked  perfume,  and 
a   handful   of   them   was   sweet   indeed.      A   single 
specimen,  plucked  about  August  1,  was  quite  as  fra- 
grant as  the  English  violet,  though  the  perfume  is 
not  what  is  known  as  violet,  but,  like  that  of  the 
hepatica,  comes  nearer  to  the  odor  of  certain  fruit- 
trees. 

It  is  only  for  a  brief  period  that  the  blossoms  of 
our  sugar  maple  are  sweet-scented;  the  perfume 
seems  to  become  stale  after  a  few  days:  but  pass 
under  this  tree  just  at  the  right  moment,  say  at 
nightfall  on  the  first  or  second  day  of  its  perfect 
inflorescence,  and  the  air  is  loaded  with  its  sweet- 
ness ;  its  perfumed  breath  falls  upon  you  as  its  cool 
shadow  does  a  few  weeks  later. 

After  the  linnsea  and  the  arbutus,  the  prettiest 
sweet-scented  flowering  vine  our  woods  hold  is  the 
common  mitchella  vine,  called  squaw-berry  and  par- 
tridge-berry. It  blooms  in  June,  and  its  twin  flow- 
ers, light  cream-color,  velvety,  tubular,  exhale  a 
most  agreeable  fragrance. 

Our  flora  is  much  more  rich  in  orchids  than  the 
European,  and  many  of  ours  are  fragrant.  The 
first  to  bloom  in  the  spring  is   the   showy  orchis, 


A   BUNCH   OF    HERB  19] 

though  it  is  far  less  showy  than  Beveral  othei         I 
find  it  in  May,  not  on   hills,   where  Graj  it 

grows,  but  in  low,  damp  places  in  the  woods.  It 
has  two  oblong  shining  leaves,  with  a  scape  four  or 
five  inches  high  strung  with  sweet-scented,  pink- 
purple  flowers.  I  usually  find  it  and  the  frin. 
polygala  in  bloom  at  the  same  time;  the  iady's-alip- 
per  is  a  little  later.  The  purple  fringed-orchis,  one 
of  the  most  showy  and  striking  of  all  our  orchids, 
blooms  in  midsummer  in  swampy  meadows  and  in 
marshy,  grassy  openings  in  the  woods,  shooting  up 
a  tapering  column  or  cylinder  of  pink-purple  fringed 
flowers,  that  one  may  see  at  quite  a  distance,  and 
the  perfume  of  which  is  too  rank  for  a  close  room. 
This  flower  is,  perhaps,  like  the  English  fragrant 
orchis,  found  in  pastures. 

Few  fragrant  flowers  in  the  shape  of  weeds  have 
come  to  us  from  the  Old  World,  and  this  leads  un- 
to remark  that  plants  with  sweet-scented  flowi 
are,  for  the  most  part,  more  intensely  local,  more 
fastidious  and  idiosyncratic,  than  those  without  per- 
fume. Our  native  thistle  —  the  pasture  thistle  — 
has  a  marked  fragrance,  and  it  is  much  more  shy 
and  limited  in  its  range  than  the  common  I  >M  World 
thistle  that  grows  every  where.  Our  little,  sunt 
white  violet  grows  only  in  wet  places,  and  the 
Canada  violet  only  in  high,  cool  woods,  while  the 
common  blue  violet  is  much  more  general  in  itfl 
distribution.  I  low  fastidious  and  exclusive  is  the 
cypripedium!  You  will  find  it  in  one  Locality  in 
the  woods,  usually   on  high,    dry   ground,  and   will 


192  PEPACTON 

look  in  vain  for  it  elsewhere.  It  does  not  go  in 
herds  like  the  commoner  plants,  but  affects  privacy 
and  solitude.  When  I  come  upon  it  in  my  walks, 
I  seem  to  be  intruding  upon  some  very  private  and 
exclusive  company.  The  large  yellow  cypripedium 
has  a  peculiar,  heavy,  oily  odor. 

In  like  manner  one  learns  where  to  look  for  arbu- 
tus, for  pipsissewa,  for  the  early  orchis;  they  have 
their  particular  haunts,  and  their  surroundings  are 
nearly  always  the  same.  The  yellow  pond-lily  is 
found  in  every  sluggish  stream  and  pond,  but 
Nymphcea  odorata  requires  a  nicer  adjustment  of 
conditions,  and  consequently  is  more  restricted  in 
its  range.  If  the  mullein  were  fragrant,  or  toad- 
flax, or  the  daisy,  or  blue-weed,  or  goldenrod,  they 
would  doubtless  be  far  less  troublesome  to  the  agri- 
culturist. There  are,  of  course,  exceptions  to  the 
rule  I  have  here  indicated,  but  it  holds  in  most 
cases.  Genius  is  a  specialty:  it  does  not  grow  in 
every  soil;  it  skips  the  many  and  touches  the  few; 
and  the  gift  of  perfume  to  a  flower  is  a  special  grace 
like  genius  or  like  beauty,  and  never  becomes  com- 
mon or  cheap. 

"Do  honey  and  fragrance  always  go  together  in 
the  flowers  1  "  Not  uniformly.  Of  the  list  of  fra- 
grant wild  flowers  I  have  given,  the  only  ones  that 
the  bees  procure  nectar  from,  so  far  as  I  have  ob- 
served, are  arbutus,  dicentra,  sugar  maple,  locust, 
and  linden.  Non-fragrant  flowers  that  yield  honey 
are  those  of  the  raspberry,  clematis,  sumac,  white 
oak,  bugloss,   ailanthus,   goldenrod,    aster,   fleabane. 


A    BUNCB    OF    SERBS 

A  large  number  of  odorless  plants  yield  pollen  to 

the  bee.     There  is  nectar  in  the  columbine,  and  the 
bumblebee  sometimes  gets   it   by  piercing  the  Bpur 
from  the  outside  as  she  does  with  dicentra.      Thi 
ought  to  be  honey  in  the  honeysuckle,  but    I   li 
never  seen  the  hive-bee  make  any  attempt  to  get  it. 

WEEDS 

One  is  tempted  to  say  that  the  most  human 
plants,  after  all,  are  the  weeds.  How  they  clii 
to  man  and  follow  him  around  the  world,  and 
spring  up  wherever  he  sets  his  foot!  How  they 
crowd  around  his  barns  and  dwellings,  and  throng 
his  garden  and  jostle  and  override  each  other  in 
their  strife  to  be  near  him!  Some  of  them  are 
domestic  and  familiar,  and  so  harmless  withal,  that 
one  comes  to  regard  them  with  positive  affection. 
Motherwort,  catnip,  plantain,  tansy,  wild  mustard, — 
what  a  homely  human  look  they  have!  they  are  an 
integral  part  of  every  old  homestead.  Tour  smart 
new  place  will  wait  long  before  they  draw  near  it. 
Or  knot-grass,  that  carpets  every  old  dooryard,  and 
fringes  every  walk,  and  softens  every  path  that 
knows  the  feet  of  children,  or  that  leads  to  the 
spring,  or  to  the  garden,  or  to  the  barn,  bow  kindly 
one  comes  to  look  upon  it!  Examine  it  with  a 
pocket  glass  and  see  how  wonderfully  beautiful  and 
exquisite  are  its  tiny  blossoms.  It  loves  the  human 
foot,  and  when  the  path  or  the  place  is  long  disu 
other  plants  usurp  the  ground. 

The  gardener  and  the  farmer  are  ostensibly  the 


194  PEPACTON 

greatest  enemies  of  the  weeds,  but  they  are  in  reality 
their  best  friends.      Weeds,  like  rats  and  mice,  in- 
crease and  spread  enormously  in  a  cultivated  coun- 
try.     They  have  better  food,    more   sunshine,    and 
more  aids  in  getting  themselves  disseminated.     They 
are  sent  from  one  end  of  the  land  to  the  other  in 
seed   grain   of   various   kinds,   and   they  take  their 
share,    and   more   too,    if   they    can   get   it,    of   the 
phosphates  and  stable  manures.      How  sure,    also, 
they  are  to  survive  any  war  of  extermination  that 
is  waged   against   them!     In  yonder   field   are   ten 
thousand    and    one    Canada    thistles.      The    farmer 
goes  resolutely  to  work  and  destroys  ten  thousand 
and  thinks  the  work  is  finished,  but  he  has  done 
nothing  till  he  has  destroyed  the  ten  thousand  and 
one.      This  one  will  keep  up  the  stock  and  again 
cover  his  fields  with  thistles. 

Weeds  are  Nature's  makeshift.      She  rejoices  in 
the  grass  and  the  grain,  but  when  these  fail  to  cover 
her  nakedness  she  resorts  to  weeds.      It  is  in  her 
plan  or  a  part  of  her  economy  to  keep  the  ground 
constantly   covered   with   vegetation   of   some    sort, 
and  she  has  layer  upon  layer  of  seeds  in  the  soil 
for  this  purpose,  and  the  wonder  is  that  each  kind 
lies  dormant  until  it  is  wanted.   If  I  uncover  the 
earth   in  any   of   my   fields,    ragweed  and  pigweed 
spring  up;  if  these  are  destroyed,  harvest  grass,  or 
quack  grass,    or   purslane,   appears.      The   spade  or 
plow  that  turns  these  under  is  sure  to  turn  up  some 
other  variety,  as  chickweed,  sheep-sorrel,  or  goose- 
foot.     The  soil  is  a  storehouse  of  seeds. 


A    BUNCH    OF    HERB  195 

The  old  fanners  say  thai  wood-ashea  will  bring 
in  the  white  clover,  and  i!  will;  the  germs  are  in 
the  soil  wrapped  in  a  profound  slumber,  bul  this 
stimulus  tickles  them  until  they  awake.  Stramo- 
nium has  been  known  to  start  up  on  ili«-  Bite  of  .in 
old  farm  building,  when  it  had  nol  been  seen  in 
that  locality  for  thirty  years.  1  have  been  told 
that  a  farmer,  somewhere  in  New  England,  in  d 
ging  a  well  came  at  a  great  depth  upon  sand  like 
that  of  the  seashore;  it  was  thrown  out,  and  in  due 
time  there  sprang  from  it  a  marine  plant.  I  have 
never  seen  earth  taken  from  so  great  a  depth  that 
it  would  not  before  the  end  of  the  season  1"'  clothed 
with  a  crop  of  weeds.  Weeds  are  so  full  of  expe- 
dients, and  the  one  engrossing  purpose  with  them 
is  to  multiply.  The  wild  onion  multiplies  at  both 
ends, — at  the  top  by  seed,  and  at  the  bottom  by 
offshoots.  Toad-flax  travels  under  ground  and  ah 
ground.  Never  allow  a  seed  to  ripen  and  yel  it 
will  cover  your  field.  Cut  off  the  head  of  the  wild 
carrot,  and  in  a  week  or  two  there  are  five  heads  in 
room  of  this  one;  cut  oil'  these  and  by  fall  then-  are 
ten  looking  defiance  at  you  from  the  Bame  root. 
Plant  corn  in  August,  and  it  will  go  forward  with 
its  preparations  asif  it  had  the  whole  season  bef< 
it.  Not  so  with  the  weeds;  thev  have  learned 
better.  If  amaranth,  or  abutilon,  or  burdock 
a  late  start,  it  makes  greal  haste  to  develop  its  seed; 
it  foregoes  its  tall  stalk  and  wide  flaunting  growth, 
and  turns  all  its  energies  into  keeping  up  the  suc- 
cession of  the   speci  I     rtain    fields    under    the 


196  PEPACTON 

plow  are  always  infested  with  "blind  nettles,'*'  oth- 
ers with  wild  buckwheat,  black  bindweed,  or  cockle. 
The  seed  lies  dormant  under  the  sward,  the  warmth 
and  the  moisture  affect  it  not  until  other  conditions 
are  fulfilled. 

The  way  in  which  one  plant  thus  keeps  another 
down  is  a  great  mystery.  Germs  lie  there  in  the 
soil  and  resist  the  stimulating  effect  of  the  sun  and 
the  rains  for  years,  and  show  no  sign.  Presently 
something  whispers  to  them,  "Arise,  your  chance 
has  come ;  the  coast  is  clear ; "  and  they  are  up  and 
doing  in  a  twinkling. 

Weeds  are  great  travelers;  they  are,  indeed,  the 
tramps  of  the  vegetable  world.  They  are  going 
east,  west,  north,  south;  they  walk;  they  fly;  they 
swim;  they  steal  a  ride;  they  travel  by  rail,  by 
flood,  by  wind;  they  go  under  ground,  and  they 
go  above,  across  lots,  and  by  the  highway.  But, 
like  other  tramps,  they  find  it  safest  by  the  high- 
way: in  the  fields  they  are  intercepted  and  cut  off; 
but  on  the  public  road,  every  boy,  every  passing 
herd  of  sheep  or  cows,  gives  them  a  lift.  Hence 
the  incursion  of  a  new  weed  is  generally  first 
noticed  along  the  highway  or  the  railroad.  In 
Orange  County  I  saw  from  the  car  window  a  field 
overrun  with  what  I  took  to  be  the  branching  white 
mullein.  Gray  says  it  is  found  in  Pennsylvania 
and  at  the  head  of  Oneida  Lake.  Doubtless  it  had 
come  by  rail  from  one  place  or  the  other.  Our 
botanist  says  of  the  bladder  campion,  a  species  of 
pink,  that  it  has  been  naturalized  around  Boston; 


A    BUNCH    OF    HERBS  197 

but  it  is  now  much  farther  west,  and  I  know  fields 
along  the  Hudson  overrun  with  it.  Streams  and 
watercourses  are  the  natural  highway  of  the  weeds. 
Some  years  ago,  and  by  some  means  or  other,  the 
viper's  bugloss,  or  blue-weed,  which  [s  said  to  be  a 
troublesome  weed  in  Virginia,  effected  a  Judgment 
near  the  head  of  the  Esopus  Creek,  a  tributary  of 
the  Hudson.  From  this  point  it  lias  made  its  way 
down  the  stream,  overrunning  its  hanks  and  invading 
meadows  and  cultivated  fields,  and  proving  a  serious 
obstacle  to  the  farmer.  All  the  gravelly,  Bandy 
margins  and  islands  of  the  Esopus,  sometimes  aci 
in  extent,  are  in  June  and  duly  blue  with  it,  and 
rye  and  oats  and  grass  in  the  near  fields  find  it  a 
serious  competitor  for  possession  of  tin'  soil.  It 
has  gone  down  the  Hudson,  and  is  appearing  in  the 
fields  along  its  shores.  The  tides  carry  it  up  the 
mouths  of  the  streams  where  it  takes  root;  the 
winds,  or  the  birds,  or  other  agencies,  in  time  give 
it  another  lift,  so  that  it  is  slowly  hut  surely  mak- 
ing its  way  inland.  The  bugloss  belongs  to  wh.it 
may  be  called  beautiful  weeds,  despite  its  rough  and 
bristly  stalk.  Its  flowers  are  deep  violet-blue,  the 
stamens  exserted,  as  the  botanists  say,  that  La,  pro- 
jected beyond  the  mouth  of  the  corolla,  with  showy 
red  anthers.  This  hit  of  red,  mingling  with  the 
blue  of  the  corolla,  gives  a  very  rich,  warm  purple 
hue  to  the  flower,  that  is  especially  pleasing  at 
little  distance.  The  best  thing  1  know  aboul  this 
weed  besides  its  good  looks  is  that  it  yields  honey 
or  pollen  to  the  bee. 


198  PEPACTOX 

Another  foreign  plant  that  the  Esopus  Creek  has 
distributed  along  its  shores  and  carried  to  the  Hud- 
son is  saponaria,  known  as  "Bouncing  Bet."  It  is 
a  common  and  in  places  a  troublesome  weed  in 
this  valley.  Bouncing  Bet  is,  perhaps,  its  English 
name,  as  the  pink-white  complexion  of  its  flowers 
with  their  perfume  and  the  coarse,  robust  character 
of  the  plant  really  give  it  a  kind  of  English  femi- 
nine comeliness  and  bounce.  It  looks  like  a  York- 
shire housemaid.  Still  another  plant  in  my  section, 
which  I  notice  has  been  widely  distributed  by  the 
agency  of  water,  is  the  spiked  loosestrife.  It  first 
appeared  many  years  ago  along  the  Wallkill;  now 

V 

it  may  be  seen  upon  many  of  its  tributaries  and  all 
along  its  banks;  and  in  many  of  the  marshy  bays 
and  coves  along  the  Hudson,  its  great  masses  of 
purple-red  bloom  in  middle  and  late  summer  afford- 
ing a  welcome  relief  to  the  traveler's  eye.  It  also 
belongs  to  the  class  of  beautiful  weeds.  It  grows 
rank  and  tall,  in  dense  communities,  and  always 
presents  to  the  eye  a  generous  mass  of  color.  In 
places,  the  marshes  and  creek  banks  are  all  aglow 
with  it,  its  wand-like  spikes  of  flowers  shooting  up 
and  uniting  in  volumes  or  pyramids  of  still  flame. 
Its  petals,  when  examined  closely,  present  a  curious 
wrinkled  or  crumpled  appearance,  like  newly-washed 
linen;  but  when  massed  the  effect  is  eminently 
pleasing.  It  also  came  from  abroad,  probably  first 
brought  to  this  country  as  a  garden  or  ornamental 
plant. 

As  a  curious  illustration  of  how  weeds  are  carried 


A    BUNCH    OF    HERBS  199 

from  one  end  of  the  earth  to  the  other,  Sir  Joseph 
Hooker  relates  this  circumstance:  "On  one  oo 
sion,"  he  says,  "landing  on  a  small  uninhabited 
island  nearly  at  the  Antipodes,  the  first  evidence 
I  met  with  of  its  having  been  previously  visited  by 
man  was  the  English  chick  weed  ;  and  this  I  traced 
to  a  mound  that  marked  the  grave  of  a  British 
sailor,  and  that  was  covered  with  the  plant,  doubt- 
less the  offspring  of  seed  that  had  adhered  to  the 
spade  or  mattock  with  which  the  grave  had  been 
dug. " 

Ours  is  a  weedy  country  because  it  is  a  roomy 
country.  Weeds  love  a  wide  margin,  and  they  find 
it  here.  You  shall  see  more  weeds  in  one  day's 
travel  in  this  country  than  in  a  week's  journey  in 
Europe.  Our  culture  of  the  soil  is  not  so  close  and 
thorough,  our  occupancy  not  so  entire  and  exclu- 
sive. The  weeds  take  up  with  the  farmers'  leav- 
ings, and  find  good  fare.  One  may  see  a  Large  alice 
taken  from  a  field  by  elecampane,  or  by  teasle  or 
milkweed;  whole  acres  given  up  to  whiteweed, 
goldenrod,  wild  carrots,  or  the  ox-eye  daisy; 
meadows  overrun  with  bear-weed,  and  sheep  p 
tures  nearly  ruined  by  St.  John's-worl  or  the  Can- 
ada thistle.  Our  farms  are  so  large  and  our  hus- 
bandry so  loose  that  we  do  not  mind  these  thin 
By  and  by  we  shall  clean  them  ..nt.  When  Sir 
Joseph  Hooker  landed  in  New  England  a  few 
ago,  he  was  surprised  to  find  how  the  European 
plants  flourished  there,  lie  found  tin-  wild  chicory 
growing  far  more  luxuriantly  than  he  had  ev<  I  Been 


200  PEPACTON 

it  elsewhere,  "forming  a  tangled  mass  of  stems  and 
branches,  studded  with  torquoise-blue  blossoms,  and 
covering  acres  of  ground."  This  is  one  of  the 
many  weeds  that  Emerson  binds  into  a  bouquet  in 
his  "Humble-Bee:"  — 

"  Succory  to  match  the  sky, 
Columbine  with  horn  of  honey, 
Scented  fern  and  agrimony, 
Clover,  catchfly,  adder's-tongue, 
And  brier-roses,  dwelt  among." 

A  less  accurate  poet  than  Emerson  would  probably 
have  let  his  reader  infer  that  the  bumblebee  gath- 
ered honey  from  all  these  plants,  but  Emerson  is 
careful  to  sav  onlv  that  she  dwelt  among  them. 
Succory  is  one  of  Virgil's  weeds  also,  — 

"And  spreading  succ'ry  chokes  the  rising  field." 

Is  there  not  something  in  our  soil  and  climate 
exceptionally  favorable  to  weeds,  —  something  harsh, 
ungenial,  sharp  -  toothed,  that  is  akin  to  them  % 
How  woody  and  rank  and  fibrous  many  varieties 
become,  lasting  the  whole  season,  and  standing  up 
stark  and  stiff  through  the  deep  winter  snows,  — 
desiccated,  preserved  by  our  dry  air!  Do  nettles 
and  thistles  bite  so  sharply  in  any  other  country  1 
Let  the  farmer  tell  you  how  they  bite  of  a  dry  mid- 
summer day  when  he  encounters  them  in  his  wheat 
or  oat  harvest. 

Yet  it  is  a  fact  that  all  our  more  pernicious 
weeds,  like  our  vermin,  are  of  Old  World  origin. 
They  hold  up  their  heads  and  assert  themselves 
here,   and  take  their  fill   of  riot   and  license;  they 


A    BUNCH    OF    HERBS  201 

are  avenged  for  their  long  years  of  repression  by 
the  stern  hand  of  European  agriculture  We  have 
hardly  a  weed  we  can  call  our  own.  I  recall  but 
three  that  are  at  all  noxious  or  troublesome,  oamely, 
milkweed,  ragweed,  and  goldenrod;  but  who  would 
miss  the  last  from  our  fields  and  highway 

"Along  the  roadside,  like  the  flowers  of  gold 
That  tawny  Incas  for  their  gardens  wrought, 
Heavy  with  sunshine  droops  the  goldeiinul," 

sings  "Whittier.  In  Europe  our  goldenrod  is  culti- 
vated in  the  flower  gardens,  as  well  it  may  be. 
The  native  species  is  found  mainly  in  woods,  and  is 
much  less  showy  than  ours. 

Our  milkweed  is  tenacious  of  life;  its  roots  lie 
deep,  as  if  to  get  away  from  the  plow,  but  it  seldom 
infests  cultivated  crops.  Then  its  stalk  is  so  full 
of  milk  and  its  pod  so  full  of  silk  that  one  cannot 
but  ascribe  good  intentions  to  it,  if  it  does  some- 
times overrun  the  meadow. 

"  In  dusty  pods  the  milkweed 
Its  hidden  silk  has  spun," 

sings  "H.  H."  in  her  "September." 

Of  our  ragweed  not  much  can  be  set  down  that 
is  complimentary,  except  that  its  name  in  the  bot- 
any is  Ambrosia,  food  of  the  gods.  It  must  be 
the  food  of  the  gods  if  anything,  for,  bo  far  as  1 
have  observed,  nothing  terrestrial  cats  it,  not  even 
billy-goats.  (Yet  a  correspondent  writes  me  that 
in  Kentucky  the  cattle  eat  it  when  hard-pressed, 
and  that  a  certain  old  farmer  there,  one  season  when 
the  hay  crop  failed,  cut  and  harvested  torn  of   it  for 


202 


PEPACTON 


his  stock  in  winter.  It  is  said  that  the  milk  and 
butter  made  from  such  hay  is  not  at  all  suggestive 
of  the  traditional  Ambrosia!)  It  is  the  bane  of 
asthmatic  patients,  but  the  gardener  makes  short 
work  of  it.  It  is  about  the  only  one  of  our  weeds 
that  follows  the  plow  and  the  harrow,  and,  except 
that  it  is  easily  destroyed,  I  should  suspect  it  to  be 
an  immigrant  from  the  Old  World.  Our  fleabane 
is  a  troublesome  weed  at  times,  but  good  husbandry 
has  little  to  dread  from  it. 

But  all  the  other  outlaws  of  the  farm  and  garden 
come  to  us  from  over  seas;  and  what  a  long  list  it 
is:  — 


Common  thistle, 

Canada  thistle, 

Burdock, 

Yellow  dock, 

Wild  carrot, 

Ox-eye  daisy, 

Chamomile, 

Mullein, 

Dead-nettle  (Lamium), 

Hemp  nettle  (Galeopsis), 

Elecampane, 

Plantain, 

Motherwort, 

Stramonium, 

Catnip, 

Blue-weed, 

Stick-seed, 

Hound' s-tongue, 

Henbane, 

Pigweed, 

Quitch  grass, 


Gill, 

Nightshade, 

Buttercup, 

Dandelion, 

Wild  mustard, 

Shepherd's  purse, 

St.  Jobn's-wort, 

Chickweed, 

Purslane, 

Mallow, 

Darnel, 

Poison  hemlock, 

Hop-clover, 

Yarrow, 

Wild  radish, 

Wild  parsnip, 

Chicory, 

Live-forever, 

Toad-flax, 

Sheep-sorrel, 

Mayweed, 


and  others  less  noxious.     To  offset  this  list  we  have 
given  Europe  the  vilest  of  all  weeds,  a  parasite  that 


A    BUNCH    OF    HERB  208 

sucks  up  human  blood,  tobacco.  Now  if  they  catch 
the  Colorado  beetle  of  us,  it  will  go  far  toward  pay- 
ing them  off  for  the  rats  and  the  mice,  and  for  other 

pests  in  our  houses. 

The  more  attractive   and   pretty  of    the   British 
weeds  — as  the  common  daisy,  of  which  the  poeta  b 
made  so  much,  the  larkspur,  which  is  a  pretty  corn- 
field weed,  and  the  scarlet  field-poppy,  which  Il«>v. 
all  summer,    and   is   so   taking   amid    the   ripening 
grain  —  have  not  immigrated  to  our  shores.      Like  a 
certain  sweet  rusticity  and  charm  of  European   rural 
life,    they   do   not   thrive   readily   under   our   Bki 
Our  fleabane  has  become  a  common  roadside  weed 
in   England,    and   a   few   other   of    our   native    I 
known   plants   have   gained   a  foothold   in   the   Old 
World.      Our  beautiful  jewel-weed  lias  recently  ap- 
peared along  certain  of  the  English  rivers. 

Pokeweed  is  a  native  American,  and  what  a  lusty, 
royal  plant  it  is!  It  never  invades  cultivated  fields, 
but  hovers  about  the  borders  and  looks  over  the 
fences  like  a  painted  Indian  sachem.  Thoreau  cov- 
eted its  strong  purple  stalk  for  a  cane,  and  the 
robins  eat  its  dark  crimson-juiced  berrii 

It  is  commonly  believed  that  the  mullein  is  in- 
digenous to  this  country,  for  have  we  not  heard 
that  it  is  cultivated  in  European  gardens,  and  chris- 
tened the  American  velvet  plant?  Yet  it,  to 
seems  to  have  come  over  witli  the  Pilgrims,  and  is 
most  abundant  in  the  older  parts  <»f  the  country. 
It  abounds  throughout  Europe  and  Asia,  and  had 
its  economic  uses  with  the  ancients.      The  Greeks 


204  PEPACTON 

made  lamp-wicks  of  its  dried  leaves,  and  the  Ro- 
mans dipped  its  dried  stalk  in  tallow  for  funeral 
torches.  It  affects  dry  uplands  in  this  country, 
and,  as  it  takes  two  years  to  mature,  it  is  not  a 
troublesome  weed  in  cultivated  crops.  The  first 
year  it  sits  low  upon  the  ground  in  its  coarse  flan- 
nel leaves,  and  makes  ready;  if  the  plow  comes 
along  now,  its  career  is  ended.  The  second  season 
it  starts  upward  its  tall  stalk,  which  in  late  summer 
is  thickly  set  with  small  yellow  flowers,  and  in  fall 
is  charged  with  myriads  of  fine  black  seeds.  "As 
full  as  a  dry  mullein  stalk  of  seeds "  is  almost 
equivalent  to  saying,  "as  numerous  as  the  sands 
upon  the  seashore." 

Perhaps  the  most  notable  thing  about  the  weeds 
that  have  come  to  us  from  the  Old  World,  when 
compared  with  our  native  species,  is  their  persist- 
ence, not  to  say  pugnacity.  They  fight  for  the  soil; 
they  plant  colonies  here  and  there  and  will  not  be 
rooted  out.  Our  native  weeds  are  for  the  most 
part  shy  and  harmless,  and  retreat  before  cultiva- 
tion, but  the  European  outlaws  follow  man  like 
vermin;  they  hang  to  his  coat-skirts,  his  sheep 
transport  them  in  their  wool,  his  cow  and  horse  in 
tail  and  mane.  As  I  have  before  said,  it  is  as  with 
the  rats  and  mice.  The  American  rat  is  in  the 
woods  and  is 'rarely  seen  even  by  woodmen,  and  the 
native  mouse  barely  hovers  upon  the  outskirts  of 
civilization;  while  the  Old  World  species  defy  our 
traps  and  our  poison,  and  have  usurped  the  land. 
So  with  the  weeds.      Take  the  thistle   for  instance: 


A   BUNCH   OF    HEBBS  205 

the  common  and  abundant  one  everywhere,  in  Belda 
and  along  highways,  is  the  European  species;  while 
the  native  thistles,   swamp  thistle,  pasture  thistle, 
etc.,  are  much  more  shy,  and  are  not  at  all   trouble- 
some.     The  Canada  thistle,  too,  which  came  to  us 
by  way  of  Canada,  —  what  a  pest,  what  a  usurper, 
what  a  defier  of  the  plow  and  the  harrow!     I  know 
of  hut  one  effectual  way  to  treat  it,  —  put  on  a  pair 
of  buckskin  gloves,    and   pull  up  every  plant  that 
shows  itself;  this  will  effect  a  radical  cure  in  two 
summers.      Of  course  the  plow  or  the  scythe,  if  not 
allowed  to  rest  more  than  a  month  at  a  time,  will 
finally  conquer  it. 

Or  take  the  common  St.  John's-wort,  —how  has 
it  established  itself  in  our  fields  and  become  a  most 
pernicious  weed,   very  difficult  to  extirpate;   while 
the   native   species  are   quite  rare,    and   seldom   or 
never  invade  cultivated  fields,  being  found  mostly 
in   wet   and   rocky    waste    places.      Of    Old   World 
origin,  too,  is  the  curled-leaf  dock  that  is  so  annoy- 
ing about  one's  garden  and  home  meadows,  its  long 
tapering  root  clinging  to  the  soil  with  such  tenacity 
that  I  have   pulled  upon   it  till  I  could  see  stai 
without  budging  it;  it  has  more  lives  than   a  cat, 
making  a  shift  to  live  when  pulled   up  and   laid   on 
top  of  the  ground  in  the  burning  summer  sun.     ( )ur 
native  docks  are  mostly  found  in  swamps,  or  near 
them,  and  are  harmless. 

Purslane  —  commonly  called  "pusley,"  and  which 
has  given  rise  to  the  saying,  "as  meaD  as  pusley" 
—  of  course  is  not  American.      A  good  sample  of 


206  PEPACTON 

our  native  purslane  is  the  claytonia,  or  spring 
beauty,  a  shy,  delicate  plant  that  opens  its  rose- 
colored  flowers  in  the  moist,  sunny  places  in  the 
woods  or  along  their  borders  so  early  in  the  season. 

There  are  few  more  obnoxious  weeds  in  cultivated 
ground  than  sheep-sorrel,  also  an  Old  World  plant; 
while  our  native  wood-sorrel,  with  its  white,  deli- 
cately veined  flowers,    or   the   variety  with  yellow 
flowers,  is  quite  harmless.      The  same  is  true  of  the 
mallow,  the  vetch,  or  tare,  and  other  plants.      We 
have  no  native  plant  so  indestructible  as  garden  or- 
pine, or  live-forever,  which  our  grandmothers  nursed 
and  for  which  they  are  cursed  by  many  a  farmer. 
The  fat,  tender,  succulent  dooryard  stripling  turned 
out  to  be  a  monster  that  would  devour  the  earth. 
I  have  seen  acres  of  meadow  land  destroyed  by  it. 
The  way  to  drown  an  amphibious  animal  is  to  never 
allow  it  to  come  to  the  surface  to  breathe,  and  this 
is  the  way  to  kill  live-forever.      It  lives  by  its  stalk 
and  leaf,  more  than  by  its  root,  and,  if  cropped  or 
bruised  as  soon  as  it  comes  to  the  surface,  it  will  in 
time  perish.      It  laughs  the  plow,  the  hoe,  the  cul- 
tivator to   scorn,  but  grazing  herds  will  eventually 
scotch  it.     Our  two  species  of  native  orpine,  Sedum 
ternatum  and  S.  telepliioides,  are  never  troublesome 

as  weeds. 

The  European  weeds  are  sophisticated,  domesti- 
cated, civilized;  they  have  been  to  school  to  man 
for  many  hundred  years,  and  they  have  learned  to 
thrive  upon  him:  their  struggle  for  existence  has 
been  sharp  and  protracted;  it  has  made  them  hardy 


A    BUNCH    OF    HERBS  207 

and  prolific;  tliey  will  thrive  in  a  lean  soil,  or  they 
will  wax  strong  in  a  rich  one ;  in  all  cases  they  fol- 
low man  and  profit  by  him.  Our  native  weeds,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  furtive  and  retiring;  they  flee 
before  the  plow  and  the  scythe,  and  hide  in  corners 
and  remote  waste  places.  Will  they,  too,  in  time, 
change  their  habits  in  this  respect? 

" Idle  weeds  are  fast  in  growth,"  says  Shakespeare, 
but  that  depends  upon  whether  the  competition  is 
sharp  and  close.  If  the  weed  finds  itself  distanced, 
or  pitted  against  great  odds,  it  grows  more  slowly 
and  is  of  diminished  stature,  but  let  it  once  get  the 
upper  hand  and  what  strides  it  makes!  Red-root 
will  grow  four  or  five  feet  high  if  it  has  a  chance, 
or  it  will  content  itself  with  a  few  inches  and 
mature  its  seed  almost  upon  the  ground. 

Many  of  our  worst  weeds  are  plants  that  have 
escaped  from  cultivation,  as  the  wild  radish,  which 
is  troublesome  in  parts  of  New  England ;  the  wild 
carrot,  which  infests  the  fields  in  eastern  New  York ; 
and  live-forever,  which  thrives  and  multiplies  under 
the  plow  and  harrow.  In  my  section  an  annoying 
weed  is  abutilon,  or  velvet-leaf,  also  called  "old 
maid,"  which  has  fallen  from  the  grace  of  the  gar- 
den and  followed  the  plow  afield.  It  will  manage 
to  mature  its  seeds  if  not  allowed  to  start  till  mid- 
summer. 

Of  beautiful  weeds  quite  a  long  list  might  be 
made  without  including  any  of  the  so-called  wild 
flowers.  A  favorite  of  mine  is  the  little  moth  mul- 
lein that  blooms  along  the  highway,  and  about  the 


208  PEPACTOX 

fields,  and  maybe  upon  the  edge  of  the  lawn,  from 
midsummer  till  frost  comes.  In  winter  its  slender 
stalk  rises  above  the  snow,  bearing  its  round  seed- 
pods  on  its  pin-like  stems,  and  is  pleasing  even 
then.  Its  flowers  are  yellow  or  white,  large,  wheel- 
shaped,  and  are  borne  vertically  with  filaments  loaded 
with  little  tufts  of  violet  wool.  The  plant  has 
none  of  the  coarse,  hairy  character  of  the  common 
mullein.  Our  cone-flower,  which  one  of  our  poets 
has  called  the  "brown-eyed  daisy,"  has  a  pleasing 
effect  when  in  vast  numbers  they  invade  a  meadow 
(if  it  is  not  your  meadow),  their  dark  brown  centres 
or  disks  and  their  golden  rays  showing  conspicu- 
ously. 

Bidens,  two-teeth,  or  "pitchforks,"  as  the  boys 
call  them,  are  welcomed  by  the  eye  when  in  late 
summer  they  make  the  swamps  and  wet,  waste 
places  yellow  with  their  blossoms. 

Vervain  is  a  beautiful  weed,  especially  the  blue 
or  purple  variety.  Its  drooping  knotted  threads 
also  make  a  pretty  etching  upon  the  winter  snow. 

Iron-weed,  which  looks  like  an  overgrown  aster, 
has  the  same  intense  purple-blue  color,  and  a  royal 
profusion  of  flowers.  There  are  giants  among  the 
weeds,  as  well  as  dwarfs  and  pigmies.  One  of  the 
giants  is  purple  eupatorium,  which  sometimes  car- 
ries its  corymbs  of  flesh-colored  flowers  ten  and 
twelve  feet  high.  A  pretty  and  curious  little  weed, 
sometimes  found  growing  in  the  edge  of  the  garden, 
is  the  clasping  specularia,  a  relative  of  the  harebell 
and   of    the    European  Venus' s    looking-glass.      Its 


A   BUNCH    OF    HERBS  209 

leaves  are  shell-shaped,  and  clasp  the  stalk  so  as  to 
form  little  shallow  cups.  In  the  bottom  of  cadi 
cup  three  buds  appear  that  never  expand  into  flow- 
ers; but  when  the  top  of  the  stalk  is  reached,  one 
and  sometimes  two  buds  open  a  large,  delicate  pur- 
ple-blue corolla.  All  the  first-born  of  this  plant 
are  still-born,  as  it  were;  only  the  latest,  which 
spring  from  its  summit,  attain  to  perfect  bloom. 
A  weed  which  one  ruthlessly  demolishes  when  he 
finds  it  hiding  from  the  plow  amid  the  strawberries, 
or  under  the  currant-bushes  and  grapevines,  is  the 
dandelion;  yet  who  would  banish  it  from  the  mead- 
ows or  the  lawns,  where  it  copies  in  gold  upon  the 
green  expanse  the  stars  of  the  midnight  sky  3  After 
its  first  blooming  comes  its  second  and  finer  and 
more  spiritual  inflorescence,  when  its  stalk,  drop- 
ping its  more  earthly  and  carnal  flower,  shoots 
upward,  and  is  presently  crowned  by  a  globe  of  the 
most  delicate  and  aerial  texture.  It  is  like  the 
poet's  dream,  which  succeeds  his  rank  and  golden 
youth.  This  globe  is  a  fleet  of  a  hundred  fairy 
balloons,  each  one  of  which  bears  a  seed  which  it 
is  destined  to  drop  far  from  the  parent  source. 

Most  weeds  have  their  uses ;  they  are  not  wholly 
malevolent.  Emerson  says  a  weed  is  a  plant  whose 
virtues  we  have  not  yet  discovered;  but  the  wild 
creatures  discover  their  virtues  if  we  do  not.  The 
bumblebee  has  discovered  that  the  hateful  toad- 
flax, which  nothing  will  eat,  and  which  in  some 
soils  will  run  out  the  grass,  has  honey  at  its  heart. 
Narrow-leaved   plantain  is  readily  eaten  by  cattle, 


210  PEPACTON 

and  the   honey-bee   gathers   much    pollen   from   it. 
The    ox-eye  daisy   makes  a   fair  quality   of    hay  if 
cut   before   it   gets   ripe.      The    cows   will    eat   the 
leaves  of  the  burdock  and  the  stinging  nettles   of 
the  woods.      But  what  cannot  a  cow's  tongue  stand? 
She  will  crop  the  poison  ivy  with  impunity,  and  I 
think  would  eat  thistles  if  she  found  them  growing 
in  the  garden.      Leeks  and  garlics  are  readily  eaten 
by  cattle  in  the  spring,  and  are  said  to  be  medicinal 
to  them.      Weeds  that  yield  neither  pasturage  for 
bee  nor  herd,  yet  afford  seeds  to  the  fall  and  winter 
birds.      This  is  true  of  most  of  the  obnoxious  weeds 
of  the  garden  and  of    thistles.      The  wild    lettuce 
yields  down  for  the  hummingbird's  nest,    and  the 
flowers  of  whiteweed  are  used  by  the  kingbird  and 
cedar-bird. 

Yet  it  is  pleasant  to  remember  that,  in  our  cli- 
mate, there  are  no  weeds  so  persistent  and  lasting 
and  universal  as  grass.  Grass  is  the  natural  cover- 
ing of  the  fields.  There  are  but  four  weeds  that  I 
know  of  —  milkweed,  live-forever,  Canada  thistle, 
and  toad-flax  —  that  it  will  not  run  out  in  a  good 
soil.  We  crop  it  and  mow  it  year  after  year ;  and 
yet,  if  the  season  favors,  it  is  sure  to  come  again. 
Fields  that  have  never  known  the  plow,  and  never 
been  seeded  by  man,  are  yet  covered  with  grass. 
And  in  human  nature,  too,  weeds  are  by  no  means 
in  the  ascendant,  troublesome  as  they  are.  The 
good  green  grass  of  love  and  truthfulness  and  com- 
mon sense  is  more  universal,  and  crowds  the  idle 
weeds  to  the  wall. 


A   BUNCH    OF   HERBS  211 

But  weeds  have  this  virtue:  they  are  not  easily 
discouraged;  they  never  lose  heart  entirely;  they 
die  game.  If  they  cannot  have  the  best,  they  will 
take  up  with  the  poorest;  if  fortune  is  unkind  to 
them  to-day,  they  hope  for  better  luck  to-morrow; 
if  they  cannot  lord  it  over  a  corn-hill,  they  will  sit 
humbly  at  its  foot  and  accept  what  comes;  in  all 
cases  they  make  the  most  of  their  opportunities. 


vni 

WINTER    PICTURES 

A    WHITE    DAY    AND    A     RED    FOX 

rp HE  day  was  indeed  white,  as  white  as  three 
-*-  feet  of  snow  and  a  cloudless  St.  Valentine's  sun 
could  make  it.  The  eye  could  not  look  forth  without 
blinking,  or  veiling  itself  with  tears.  The  patch 
of  plowed  ground  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  where  the 
wind  had  blown  the  snow  away,  was  as  welcome  to 
it  as  water  to  a  parched  tongue.  It  was  the  one 
refreshing  oasis  in  this  desert  of  dazzling  light.  I 
sat  down  upon  it  to  let  the  eye  bathe  and  revel  in 
it.  It  took  away  the  smart  like  a  poultice.  For 
so  gentle  and  on  the  whole  so  beneficent  an  ele- 
ment, the  snow  asserts  itself  very  loudly.  It  takes 
the  world  quickly  and  entirely  to  itself.  It  makes 
no  concessions  or  compromises,  but  rules  despoti- 
cally. It  baffles  and  bewilders  the  eye,  and  it 
returns  the  sun  glare  for  glare.  Its  coming  in  our 
winter  climate  is  the  hand  of  mercy  to  the  earth 
and  to  everything  in  its  bosom,  but  it  is  a  barrier 
and  an  embargo  to  everything  that  moves  above. 

We  toiled  up  the  long  steep  hill,  where  only  an 
occasional  mullein-stalk  or  other  tall  weed  stood 
above  the  snow.      Near  the  top  the  hill  was  girded 


214  PEPACTON 

with  a  bank  of  snow  that  blotted  out  the  stone  wall 
and  every  vestige  of  the  earth  beneath.  These 
hills  wear  this  belt  till  May,  and  sometimes  the 
plow  pauses  beside  them.  From  the  top  of  the 
ridge  an  immense  landscape  in  immaculate  white 
stretches  before  us.  Miles  upon  miles  of  farms, 
smoothed  and  padded  by  the  stainless  element,  hang 
upon  the  sides  of  the  mountains,  or  repose  across 
the  long  sloping  hills.  The  fences  or  stone  walls 
show  like  half-obliterated  black  lines.  I  turn  my 
back  to  the  sun,  or  shade  my  eyes  with  my  hand. 
Every  object  or  movement  in  the  landscape  is 
sharply  revealed ;  one  could  see  a  fox  half  a  league. 
The  farmer  foddering  his  cattle,  or  drawing  manure 
afield,  or  leading  his  horse  to  water;  the  pedestrian 
crossing  the  hill  below;  the  children  wending  their 
way  toward  the  distant  schoolhouse,  —  the  eye 
cannot  help  but  note  them:  they  are  black  specks 
upon  square  miles  of  luminous  white.  What  a 
multitude  of  sins  this  unstinted  charity  of  the  snow 
covers!  How  it  flatters  the  ground!  Yonder  ster- 
ile field  might  be  a  garden,  and  you  would  never 
suspect  that  that  gentle  slope  with  its  pretty  dim- 
ples and  curves  was  not  the  smoothest  of  meadows, 
yet  it  is  paved  with  rocks  and  stone. 

But  what  is  that  black  speck  creeping  across  that 
cleared  field  near  the  top  of  the  mountain  at  the 
head  of  the  valley,  three  quarters  of  a  mile  away  1 
It  is  like  a  fly  moving  across  an  illuminated  surface. 
A  distant  mellow  bay  floats  to  us  and  we  know  it 
is  the  hound.      He  picked  up  the  trail  of  the  fox 


WINTER    PICTURES  215 

half  an  hour  since,  where  he  had  crossed  the  ridge 
early  in  the  morning,  and  now  he  has  routed  him 
and  Reynard  is  steering  for  the  Big  Mountain. 
We  press  on,  attain  the  shoulder  of  the  range, 
where  we  strike  a  trail  two  or  three  days  old  of 
some  former  hunters,  which  leads  us  into  the  woods 
along  the  side  of  the  mountain.  We  are  on  the 
first  plateau  before  the  summit;  the  snow  partly 
supports  us,  but  when  it  gives  way  and  we  sound 
it  with  our  legs  we  find  it  up  to  our  hips.  Here 
we  enter  a  white  world  indeed.  It  is  like  some 
conjurer's  trick.  The  very  trees  have  turned  to 
snow.  The  smallest  branch  is  like  a  cluster  of 
great  white  antlers.  The  eye  is  bewildered  by  the 
soft  fleecy  labyrinth  before  it.  On  the  lower  ranges 
the  forests  were  entirely  bare,  but  now  we  perceive 
the  summit  of  every  mountain  about  us  runs  up 
into  a  kind  of  arctic  region  where  the  trees  are 
loaded  with  snow.  The  beginning  of  this  colder 
zone  is  sharply  marked  all  around  the  horizon;  the 
line  runs  as  level  as  the  shore  line  of  a  lake  or  sea; 
indeed,  a  warmer  aerial  sea  fills  all  the  valleys,  sub- 
merging the  lower  peaks,  and  making  white  islands 
of  all  the  higher  ones.  The  branches  bend  with 
the  rime.  The  winds  have  not  shaken  it  down. 
It  adheres  to  them  like  a  growth.  On  examination 
I  find  the  brandies  coated  with  ice  from  which 
shoot  slender  spikes  and  needles  that  penetrate  and 
hold  the  cord  of  snow.  It  is  a  new  kind  of  foliage 
wrought  by  the  frost  and  the  clouds,  and  it  obscures 
the  sky,  and  fills  the  vistas  of  the  woods  nearly  as 


216  PEPACTON 

much  as  the  myriad  leaves  of  summer.  The  sun 
blazes,  the  sky  is  without  a  cloud  or  a  film,  yet  we 
walk  in  a  soft  white  shade.  A  gentle  breeze  was 
blowing  on  the  open  crest  of  the  mountain,  but  one 
could  carry  a  lighted  candle  through  these  snow- 
curtained  and  snow-canopied  chambers.  How  shall 
we  see  the  fox  if  the  hound  drives  him  through  this 
white  obscurity?  But  we  listen  in  vain  for  the 
voice  of  the  dog  and  press  on.  Hares'  tracks  were 
numerous.  Their  great  soft  pads  had  left  their 
imprint  everywhere,  sometimes  showing  a  clear  leap 
of  ten  feet.  They  had  regular  circuits  which  we 
crossed  at  intervals.  The  woods  were  well  suited 
to  them,  low  and  dense,  and,  as  we  saw,  liable  at 
times  to  wear  a  livery  whiter  than  their  own. 

The  mice,  too,  how  thick  their  tracks  were,  that 
of  the  white-footed  mouse  being  most  abundant; 
but  occasionally  there  was  a  much  finer  track,  with 
strides  or  leaps  scarcely  more  than  an  inch  apart. 
This  is  perhaps  the  little  shrew-mouse  of  the  woods, 
the  body  not  more  than  an  inch  and  a  half  long, 
the  smallest  mole  or  mouse  kind  known  to  me. 
Once,  while  encamping  in  the  woods,  one  of  these 
tiny  shrews  got  into  an  empty  pail  standing  in 
camp,  and  died  before  morning,  either  from  the 
cold,  or  in  despair  of  ever  getting  out  the  pail. 

At  one  point,  around  a  small  sugar  maple,  the 
mice-tracks  are  unusually  thick.  It  is  doubtless 
their  granary;  they  have  beech -nuts  stored  there, 
I  '11  warrant.  There  are  two  entrances  to  the  cav- 
ity of  the  tree,  —  one  at  the  base,  and  one  seven 


WINTER    PICTURES  217 

or  eight  feet  up.  At  the  upper  one,  which  is  only 
just  the  size  of  a  mouse,  a  squirrel  has  been  trying 
to  break  in.  He  has  cut  and  chiseled  the  solid 
wood  to  the  depth  of  nearly  an  inch,  and  his  chips 
strew  the  snow  all  about.  He  knows  what  is  in 
there,  and  the  mice  know  that  he  knows;  hence 
their  apparent  consternation.  They  have  rushed 
wildly  about  over  the  snow,  and,  I  doubt  not,  have 
given  the  piratical  red  squirrel  a  piece  of  their 
minds.  A  few  yards  away  the  mice  have  a  hole 
down  into  the  snow,  which  perhaps  leads  to  some 
snug  den  under  the  ground.  Hither  they  may  have 
been  slyly  removing  their  stores  while  the  squirrel 
was  at  work  with  his  back  turned.  One  more 
night  and  he  will  effect  an  entrance :  what  a  good 
joke  upon  him  if  he  finds  the  cavity  empty !  These 
native  mice  are  very  provident,  and,  I  imagine, 
have  to  take  many  precautions  to  prevent  their 
winter  stores  being  plundered  by  the  squirrels,  who 
live,  as  it  were,  from  hand  to  mouth. 

We  see  several  fresh  fox-tracks,  and  wish  for  the 
hound,  but  'there  are  no  tidings  of  him.  After 
half  an  hour's  floundering  and  cautiously  picking 
our  way  through  the  woods,  we  emerge  into  a 
cleared  field  that  stretches  up  from  the  valley  below, 
and  just  laps  over  the  back  of  the  mountain.  It  is 
a  broad  belt  of  white  that  drops  down  and  down 
till  it  joins  other  fields  that  sweep  along  the  base  of 
the  mountain,  a  mile  away.  To  the  east,  through 
a  deep  defile  in  the  mountains,  a  landscape  in  an 
adjoining  county  lifts  itself  up,  like  a  bank  of  white 
and  gray  clouds. 


218  PEP ACTON 

When  the  experienced  fox-hunter  comes  out  upon 
such  an  eminence  as  this,  he  always  scrutinizes  the 
fields  closely  that  lie  beneath  him,  and  it  many 
times  happens  that  his  sharp  eye  detects  Reynard 
asleep  upon  a  rock  or  a  stone  wall,  in  which  case, 
if  he  be  armed  with  a  rifle  and  his  dog  be  not 
near,  the  poor  creature  never  wakens  from  his  slum- 
ber. The  fox  nearly  always  takes  his  nap  in  the 
open  fields,  along  the  sides  of  the  ridges,  or  under 
the  mountain,  where  he  can  look  down  upon  the 
busy  farms  beneath  and  hear  their  many  sounds,  the 
barking  of  dogs,  the  lowing  of  cattle,  the  cackling 
of  hens,  the  voices  of  men  and  boys,  or  the  sound 
of  travel  upon  the  highway.  It  is  on  that  side, 
too,  that  he  keeps  the  sharpest  lookout,  and  the 
appearance  of  the  hunter  above  and  behind  him  is 
always  a  surprise. 

We  pause  here,  and,  with  alert  ears  turned  toward 
the  Big  Mountain  in  front  of  us,  listen  for  the  dog. 
But  not  a  sound  is  heard.  A  flock  of  snow  bunt- 
ings pass  high  above  us,  uttering  their  contented 
twitter,  and  their  white  forms  seen  against  the 
intense  blue  give  the  impression  of  large  snowflakes 
drifting  across  the  sky.  I  hear  a  purple  finch,  too, 
and  the  feeble  lisp  of  the  redpoll.  A  shrike  (the 
first  I  have  seen  this  season)  finds  occasion  to  come 
this  way  also.  He  alights  on  the  tip  of  a  dry  limb, 
and  from  his  perch  can  see  into  the  valley  on  both 
sides  of  the  mountain.  He  is  prowling  about  for 
chickadees,  no  doubt,  a  troop  of  which  I  saw  com- 
ing   through    the    wood.      When    pursued    by    the 


WINTER   PICTURES  219 

shrike,  the  chickadee  has  been  seen  to  take  refuge 
in  a  squirrel-hole  in  a  tree.  Hark!  Is  that  the 
hound,  or  doth  expectation  mock  the  eager  ear? 
"With  open  mouths  and  hated  breaths  we  listen. 
Yes,  it  is  old  "Singer;"  he  is  bringing  the  fox 
over  the  top  of  the  range  toward  Butt  End,  the 
Ultima  Thule  of  the  hunters'  tramps  in  this  sec- 
tion. In  a  moment  or  two  the  dog  is  lost  to  hear- 
ing again.  ^Ye  wait  for  his  second  turn;  then  for 
his  third. 

"He   is   playing    about    the    summit,"    says   my 
companion. 

"Let  us  go  there,"  say  I,  and  we  are  off. 

More  dense  snow-hung  woods  beyond  the  clear- 
ing where  we  begin  our  ascent  of  the  Big  Mountain, 
—  a  chief  that  carries  the  range  up  several  hundred 
feet  higher  than  the  part  we  have  thus  far  traversed. 
We  are  occasionally  to  our  hips  in  the  snow,  but 
for  the  most  part  the  older  stratum,  a  foot  or  so 
down,  bears  us;  up  and  up  we  go  into  the  dim, 
muffled  solitudes,  our  hats  and  coats  powdered  like 
millers.  A  half  hour's  heavy  tramping  brings  us 
to  the  broad,  level  summit,  and  to  where  the  fox 
and  hound  have  crossed  and  recrossed  many  times. 
As  we  are  walking  along  discussing  the  matter,  we 
suddenly  hear  the  dog  coining  straight  on  to  us. 
The  woods  are  so  choked  with  snow  that  we  do  not 
hear  him  till  he  breaks  up  from  under  the  mountain 
within  a  hundred  yards  of  us. 

"  We  have  turned  the  fox ! "  we   both   exclaim, 
much  put  out. 


220  PEPACTON 

Sure  enough,  we  have.  The  dog  appears  in 
sight,  is  puzzled  a  moment,  then  turns  sharply  to 
the  left,  and  is  lost  to  eye  and  to  ear  as  quickly  as 
if  he  had  plunged  into  a  cave.  The  woods  are, 
indeed,  a  kind  of  cave,  —  a  cave  of  alabaster,  with 
the  sun  shining  upon  it.  We  take  up  positions 
and  wait.  These  old  hunters  know  exactly  where 
to  stand. 

"If  the  fox  comes  back,"  said  my  companion, 
"he  will  cross  up  there  or  down  here,"  indicating 
two  points  not  twenty  rods  asunder. 

We  stood  so  that  each  commanded  one  of  the 
runways  indicated.  How  light  it  was,  though  the 
sun  was  hidden !  Every  branch  and  twig  beamed 
in  the  sun  like  a  lamp.  A  downy  woodpecker 
below  me  kept  up  a  great  fuss  and  clatter,  —  all  for 
my  benefit,  I  suspected.  All  about  me  were  great, 
soft  mounds,  where  the  rocks  lay  buried.  It  was 
a  cemetery  of  drift  bowlders.  There!  that  is  the 
hound.  Does  his  voice  come  across  the  valley  from 
the  spur  off  against  us,  or  is  it  on  our  side  down 
under  the  mountain  1  After  an  interval,  just  as  I 
am  thinking  the  dog  is  going  away  from  us  along 
the  opposite  range,  his  voice  comes  up  astonishingly 
near.  A  mass  of  snow  falls  from  a  branch,  and 
makes  one  start;  but  it  is  not  the  fox.  Then 
through  the  white  vista  below  me  I  catch  a  glimpse 
of  something  red  or  yellow,  yellowish  red  or  red- 
dish yellow ;  it  emerges  from  the  lower  ground,  and, 
with  an  easy,  jaunty  air,  draws  near.  I  am  ready 
and  just  in  the  mood  to  make  a  good  shot.      The 


WINTER    PICTURES  221 

fox    stops  just   out    of    range    and   listens   for   the 
hound.      He  looks  as  bright  as  an  autumn  leaf  upon 
the  spotless  surface.      Then  he  starts  on,  but  he  is 
not  coming  to  me,  he  is  going  to  the  other  man. 
Oh,    foolish   fox,    you   are   going   straight   into   the 
jaws    of    death!     My    comrade    stands   just    there 
beside  that  tree.      I  would  gladly  have  given  Rey- 
nard the  wink,  or  signaled  to  him  if  I  could.      It 
did  seem  a  pity    to    shoot    him,    now  he  was    out 
of  my  reach.      I  cringe  for  him,  when  crack  goes 
the  gun!     The  fox  squalls,  picks  himself  up,  and 
plunges    over    the    brink    of    the    mountain.      The 
hunter  has  not  missed  his  aim,  but  the  oil  in  his 
gun,    he   says,   has  weakened    the    strength   of    his 
powder.      The  hound,  hearing  the  report,  came  like 
a   whirlwind    and  was    off   in   hot    pursuit.      Both 
fox   and  dog   now  bleed,  —  the   dog   at   his   heels, 
the  fox  from  his  wounds. 

In  a  few  minutes  there  came  up  from  under  the 
mountain  that  long,  peculiar  bark  which  the  hound 
always  makes  when  he  has  run  the  fox  in,  or  when 
something  new  and  extraordinary  has  happened. 
In  this  instance  he  said  plainly  enough,  "The  race 
is  up,  the  coward  has  taken  to  his  hole,  ho-o-o-le." 
Plunging  down  in  the  direction  of  the  sound,  the 
snow  literally  to  our  waists,  we  were  soon  at  the 
jspot,  a  great  ledge  thatched  over  with  three  or  four 
feet  of  snow.  The  dog  was  alternately  licking  his 
heels  and  whining  and  berating  the  fox.  The 
opening  into  which  the  latter  had  fled  was  partially 
closed,  and,  as  I  scraped  out  and  cleared  away  the 


222  PEPACTON 

snow,  I  thought  of  the  familiar  saying,  that  so  far 
as  the  sun  shines  in,  the  snow  will  blow  in.  The 
fox,  I  suspect,  has  always  his  house  of  refuge,  or 
knows  at  once  where  to  flee  to  if  hard  pressed. 
This  place  proved  to  be  a  large  vertical  seam  in  the 
rock,  into  which  the  dog,  on  a  little  encouragement 
from  his  master,  made  his  way.  I  thrust  my  head 
into  the  ledge's  mouth,  and  in  the  dim  light  watched 
the  dog.  He  progressed  slowly  and  cautiously  till 
only  his  bleeding  heels  were  visible.  Here  some 
obstacle  impeded  him  a  few  moments,  when  he 
entirely  disappeared  and  was  presently  face  to  face 
with  the  fox  and  engaged  in  mortal  combat  with 
him.  It  was  a  fierce  encounter  there  beneath  the 
rocks,  the  fox  silent,  the  dog  very  vociferous.  But 
after  a  time  the  superior  weight  and  strength  of  the 
latter  prevails  and  the  fox  is  brought  to  light  nearly 
dead.  Reynard  winks  and  eyes  me  suspiciously, 
as  I  stroke  his  head  and  praise  his  heroic  defense; 
but  the  hunter  quickly  and  mercifully  puts  an  end 
to  his  fast-ebbing  life.  His  canine  teeth  seem  un- 
usually large  and  formidable,  and  the  dog  bears 
the  marks  of  them  in  many  deep  gashes  upon  his 
face  and  nose.  His  pelt  was  quickly  stripped  off, 
revealing  his  lean,  sinewy  form. 

The  fox  was  not  as  poor  in  flesh  as  I  expected  to 
see  him,  though  I  '11  warrant  he  had  tasted  very 
little  food  for  days,  perhaps  for  weeks.  How  his 
great  activity  and  endurance  can  be  kept  up,  on  the 
spare  diet  he  must  of  necessity  be  confined  to,  is  a 
mystery.      Snow,  snow   everywhere,  for  weeks  and 


WINTER    PICTURES  223 

for  months,  and  intense  cold,  and  no  henroost 
accessible,  and  no  carcass  of  sheep  or  pig  in  the 
neighborhood!  The  hunter,  tramping  miles  and 
leagues  through  his  haunts,  rarely  sees  any  sign  of 
his  having  caught  anything.  Rarely,  though,  in 
the  course  of  many  winters,  he  may  have  seen  evi- 
dence of  his  having  surprised  a  rabbit  or  a  par- 
tridge in  the  woods.  He  no  doubt  at  this  season 
lives  largely  upon  the  memory  (or  the  fat)  of  the 
many  good  dinners  he  had  in  the  plentiful  summer 
and  fall. 

As  we  crossed  the  mountain  on  our  return,  we 
saw  at  one  point  blood-stains  upon  the  snow,  and, 
as  the  fox-tracks  were  very  thick  on  and  about  it, 
we  concluded  that  a  couple  of  males  had  had  an 
encounter  there,  and  a  pretty  sharp  one.  Reynard 
goes  a-wooing  in  February,  and  it  is  to  be  presumed 
that,  like  other  dogs,  he  is  a  jealous  lover.  A  crow 
had  alighted  and  examined  the  blood-stains,  and 
now,  if  he  will  look  a  little  farther  along,  upon  a 
flat  rock  he  will  find  the  flesh  he  was  looking  for. 
Our  hound's  nose  was  so  blunted  now,  speaking 
without  metaphor,  that  he  would  not  look  at  another 
trail,  but  hurried  home  to  rest  upon  his  laurels. 

A    POTOMAC    SKETCH 

While  on  a  visit  to  Washington  in  January, 
1878,  I  went  on  an  expedition  down  the  Potomac 
with  a  couple  of  friends  to  shoot  ducks.  We  left 
on  the  morning  boat  that  makes  daily  trips  to  and 
from  Mount  Vernon.      The  weather  was  chilly  and 


224  PEPACTON 

the  sky  threatening.  The  clouds  had  a  singulai 
appearance;  they  were  boat-shaped,  with  well-de- 
fined keels.  I  have  seldom  known  such  clouds  to 
bring  rain;  they  are  simply  the  fleet  of  iEolus,  and 
so  it  proved  on  this  occasion,  for  they  gradually 
dispersed  or  faded  out,  and  before  noon  the  sun  was 
shining. 

We  saw  numerous  flocks  of  ducks  on  the  passage 
down,  and  saw  a  gun  (the  man  was  concealed) 
shoot  some  from  a  "  blind  "  near  Fort  Washington. 
Opposite  Mount  Vernon,  on  the  flats,  there  was  a 
large  "bed"  of  ducks.  I  thought  the  word  a  good 
one  to  describe  a  long  strip  of  water  thickly  planted 
with  them.  One  of  my  friends  was  a  member  of 
the  Washington  and  Mount  Vernon  Ducking  Club, 
which  has  its  camp  and  fixtures  just  below  the 
Mount  Vernon  landing;  he  was  an  old  ducker. 
For  my  part  I  had  never  killed  a  duck,  —  except 
with  an  axe,  —  nor  have  I  yet. 

We  made  our  way  along  the  beach  from  the  land- 
ing, over  piles  of  driftwood,  and  soon  reached  the 
quarters,    a   substantial   building,    fitted   up  with   a 
stove,   bunks,    chairs,    a    table,    culinary    utensils, 
crockery,  etc.,  with  one  corner  piled  full  of  decoys. 
There  were   boats   to   row   in   and   boxes   to   shoot 
from,    and  I  felt  sure  we  should  have  a  pleasant 
time,    whether    we    got    any   ducks    or    not.      The 
weather   improved  hourly,    till   in  the  afternoon  a 
well-defined  installment  of  the  Indian  summer,  that 
had  been  delayed  somewhere,  settled  down  upon  the 
scene;    this  lasted    during   our   stay    of    two   days. 


WINTER    PICTURES  225 

The  river  was  placid,  even  glassy,  the  air  richly 
and  deeply  toned  with  haze,  and  the  sun  that  of 
the  mellowest  October.  "The  fairer  the  weather, 
the  fewer  the  ducks,"  said  one  of  my  companions. 
"But  this  is  better  than  ducks,"  I  thought,  and 
prayed  that  it  might  last. 

Then  there  was  something  pleasing  to  the  fancy 
in  being  so  near  to  Mount  Vernon.  It  formed  a 
sort  of  rich,  historic  background  to  our  flitting  and 
trivial  experiences.  Just  where  the  eye  of  the 
great  Captain  would  perhaps  first  strike  the  water 
as  he  came  out  in  the  morning  to  take  a  turn  up  and 
down  his  long  piazza,  the  Club  had  formerly  had  a 
"blind,"  but  the  ice  of  a  few  weeks  before  our  visit 
had  carried  it  away.  A  little  lower  down,  and  in 
full  view  from  his  bedroom  window,  was  the  place 
where  the  shooting  from  the  boxes  was  usually 
done. 

The  duck  is  an  early  bird,  and  not  much  given 
to  wandering  about  in  the  afternoon;  hence  it  was 
thought  not  worth  while  to  put  out  the  decoys  till 
the  next  morning.  We  would  spend  the  afternoon 
roaming  inland  in  quest  of  quail,  or  rabbits,  or 
turkeys  (for  a  brood  of  the  last  were  known  to  lurk 
about  the  woods  back  there).  It  was  a  delightful 
afternoon's  tramp  through  oak  woods,  pine  barrens, 
and  half-wild  fields.  We  flushed  several  quail  that 
the  dog  should  have  pointed,  and  put  a  rabbit  to 
rout  by  a  well-directed  broadside,  but  brought  no 
game  to  camp.  We  kicked  about  an  old  bushy 
clearing,  where  my  friends  had  shot  a  wild  turkey 


226  PEPACTON 

Thanksgiving  Day,  but  the  turkey  could  not  be 
started  again.  One  shooting  had  sufficed  for  it. 
We  crossed  or  penetrated  extensive  pine  woods  that 
had  once  (perhaps  in  Washington's  time)  been  cul- 
tivated fields ;  the  mark  of  the  plow  was  still  clearly 
visible.  The  land  had  been  thrown  into  ridges, 
after  the  manner  of  English  fields,  eight  or  ten  feet 
wide,  with  a  deep  dead  furrow  between  them  for 
purposes  of  drainage.  The  pines  were  scrubby,  — 
what  are  known  as  the  loblolly  pines,  — and  from 
ten  to  twelve  inches  through  at  the  butt.  In  a  low 
bottom,  among  some  red  cedars,  I  saw  robins  and 
several  hermit  thrushes,  besides  the  yellow-rumped 
warbler. 

That  night,  as  the  sun  went  down  on  the  one 
hand,  the  full  moon  rose  up  on  the  other,  like  the 
opposite  side  of  an  enormous  scale.  The  river,  too, 
was  presently  brimming  with  the  flood  tide.  It 
was  so  still  one  could  have  carried  a  lighted  candle 
from  shore  to  shore.  In  a  little  skiff,  we  floated 
and  paddled  up  under  the  shadow  of  Mount  Vernon 
and  into  the  mouth  of  a  large  creek  that  flanks  it 
on  the  left.  In  the  profound  hush  of  things,  every 
sound  on  either  shore  was  distinctly  heard.  A 
large  bed  of  ducks  were  feeding  over  on  the  Mary- 
land side,  a  mile  or  more  away,  and  the  multitu- 
dinous sputtering  and  shuffling  of  their  bills  in 
the  water  sounded  deceptively  near.  Silently  we 
paddled  in  that  direction.  When  about  half  a  mile 
from  them,  all  sound  of  feeding  suddenly  ceased; 
then,  after  a  time,  as  we  kept  on,  there  was  a  great 


WINTER    PICTURES  227 

clamor  of  wings,  and  the  whole  bed  appeared  to 
take  flight.  We  paused  and  listened,  and  presently- 
heard  them  take  to  the  water  again,  far  below  and 
beyond  us. 

We  loaded  a  boat  with  the  decoys  that  night, 
and  in  the  morning,  on  the  first  sign  of  day,  towed 
a  box  out  in  position,  and  anchored  it,  and  disposed 
the  decoys  about  it.  Two  hundred  painted  wooden 
ducks,  each  anchored  by  a  small  weight  that  was 
attached  by  a  cord  to  the  breast,  bowed  and  sidled 
and  rode  the  water,  and  did  everything  but  feed, 
in  a  bed  many  yards  long.  The  shooting-box  is  a 
kind  of  coffin,  in  which  the  gunner  is  interred  amid 
the  decoys,  —  buried  below  the  surface  of  the  water, 
and  invisible,  except  from  a  point  above  him.  The 
box  has  broad  canvas  wings,  that  unfold  and  spread 
out  upon  the  surface  of  the  water,  four  or  five  feet 
each  way.  These  steady  it,  and  keep  the  ripples 
from  running  in  when  there  is  a  breeze.  Iron 
decoys  sit  upon  these  wings  and  upon  the  edge  of 
the  box,  and  sink  it  to  the  required  level,  so  that, 
when  everything  is  completed  and  the  gunner  is  in 
position,  from  a  distance  or  from  the  shore  one  sees 
only  a  large  bed  of  ducks,  with  the  line  a  little 
more  pronounced  in  the  centre,  where  the  sports- 
man lies  entombed,  to  be  quickly  resurrected  when 
the  game  appears.  He  lies  there  stark  and  stiff 
upon  his  back,  like  a  marble  effigy  upon  a  tomb, 
his  gun  by  his  side,  with  barely  room  to  straighten 
himself  in,  and  nothing  to  look  at  but  the  sky  above 
him.      His   companions   on   shore   keep   a   lookout, 


228  PEPACTON 

and,  when  ducks  are  seen  on  the  wing,  cry  out, 
"Mark,  coming  up,"  or  "Mark,  coming  down,"  or, 
"Mark,  coming  in,"  as  the  case  may  be.  If  they 
decoy,  the  gunner  presently  hears  the  whistle  of 
their  wings,  or  maybe  he  catches  a  glimpse  of  them 
over  the  rim  of  the  box  as  they  circle  about.  Just 
as  they  let  down  their  feet  to  alight,  he  is  expected 
to  spring  up  and  pour  his  broadside  into  them. 
A  boat  from  shore  comes  and  picks  up  the  game,  if 
there  is  any  to  pick  up. 

The  club-man,  by  common  consent,  was  the  first 
in  the  box  that  morning;  but  only  a  few  ducks 
were  moving,  and  he  had  lain  there  an  hour  before 
we  marked  a  solitary  bird  approaching,  and,  after 
circling  over  the  decoys,  alighting  a  little  beyond 
them.  The  sportsman  sprang  up  as  from  the  bed 
of  the  river,  and  the  duck  sprang  up  at  the  same 
time,  and  got  away  under  fire.  After  a  while  my 
other  companion  went  out;  but  the  ducks  passed  by 
on  the  other  side,  and  he  had  no  shots.  In  the 
afternoon,  remembering  the  robins,  and  that  robins 
are  game  when  one's  larder  is  low,  I  set  out  alone 
for  the  pine  bottoms,  a  mile  or  more  distant. 
When  one  is  loaded  for  robins,  he  may  expect  to 
see  turkeys,  and  vice  versa.  As  I  was  walking 
carelessly  on  the  borders  of  an  old  brambly  field 
that  stretched  a  long  distance  beside  the  pine  woods, 
I  heard  a  noise  in  front  of  me,  and,  on  looking  in 
that  direction,  saw  a  veritable  turkey,  with  a  spread 
tail,  leaping  along  at  a  rapid  rate.  She  was  so 
completely  the  image  of  the  barnyard  fowl  that  I 


WINTER    PICTURES  229 

was  slow  to  realize  that  here  was  the  most  notable 
game  of  that  part  of  Virginia,  for  the  sight  of  which 
sportsmen's  eyes  do  water.  As  she  was  fairly  on 
the  wing,  I  sent  my  robin-shot  after  her;  but  they 
made  no  impression,  and  I  stood  and  watched  with 
great  interest  her  long,  level  flight.  As  she  neared 
the  end  of  the  clearing,  she  set  her  wings  and  sailed 
straight  into  the  corner  of  the  woods.  I  found  no 
robins,  but  went  back  satisfied  with  having  seen 
the  turkey,  and  having  had  an  experience  that  I 
knew  would  stir  up  the  envy  and  the  disgust  of  my 
companions.  They  listened  with  ill-concealed  im- 
patience, stamped  the  ground  a  few  times,  uttered 
a  vehement  protest  against  the  caprice  of  fortune 
that  always  puts  the  game  in  the  wrong  place  or 
the  gun  in  the  wrong  hands,  and  rushed  off  in 
quest  of  that  turkey.  She  was  not  where  they 
looked,  of  course;  and,  on  their  return  about  sun- 
down, when  they  had  ceased  to  think  about  their 
game,  she  flew  out  of  the  top  of  a  pine-tree  not 
thirty  rods  from  camp,  and  in  full  view  of  them, 
but  too  far  off  for  a  shot. 

In  my  wanderings  that  afternoon,  I  came  upon 
two  negro  shanties  in  a  small  triangular  clearing  in 
the  woods;  no  road  but  only  a  footpath  led  to  them. 
Three  or  four  children,  the  eldest  a  girl  of  twelve, 
were  about  the  door  of  one  of  them.  I  approached 
and  asked  for  a  drink  of  water.  The  girl  got  a 
glass  and  showed  me  to  the  spring  near  by. 

"We 's  grandmover's  daughter's  chilern,''  she 
said,  in  reply  to  my  inquiry.      Their  mother  worked 


230  PEPACTON 

in  Washington  for  "eighteen  cents  a  month,"  and 
their  grandmother  took  care  of  them. 

Then  I  thought  I  would  pump  her  about  the 
natural  history  of  the  place. 

"What  was  there  in  these  woods, — what  kind 
of  animals,  —  any  ?  " 

"Oh  yes,  sah,  when  we  first  come  here  to  live  in 
dese  bottoms  de  possums  and  foxes  and  things  were 
so  thick  you  could  hardly  go  out-o'-doors."  A  fox 
had  come  along  one  day  right  where  her  mother 
was  washing,  and  they  used  to  catch  the  chickens 
"dreadful." 

"  Were  there  any  snakes  ?  " 

"Yes,  sah;  black  snakes,  moccasins,  and  doctors." 

The  doctor,  she  said,  was  a  powerful  ugly  cus- 
tomer; it  would  get  right  hold  of  your  leg  as  you 
were  passing  along,  and  whip  and  sting  you  to 
death.      I  hoped  I  should  not  meet  any  "doctors." 

I  asked  her  if  they  caught  any  rabbits. 

"Oh  yes,  we  catches  dem  in  '  gums.'  " 

"What  are  gums'?  "   I  asked. 

"  See  dat  clown  dare  1     Dat  'sa'  gum. '  " 

I  saw  a  rude  box-trap  made  of  rough  boards.  It 
seems  these  traps,  and  many  other  things,  such  as 
beehives,  and  tubs,  etc.,  are  frequently  made  in 
the  South  from  a  hollow  gum-tree;  hence  the  name 
gum  has  come  to  have  a  wide  application. 

The  ducks  flew  quite  briskly  that  night;  I  could 
hear  the  whistle  of  their  wings  as  I  stood  upon  the 
shore  indulging  myself  in  listening.  The  ear  loves 
a  good  field  as  well  as  the  eye,  and  the  night  is  the 


WINTER    PICTURES  23] 

best  time  to  listen,  to  put  your  ear  to  nature's  key- 
hole and  see  what  the  whisperings  and  the  prepara- 
tions mean. 

"Dark  night,  that  from  the  eye  his  function  takes, 
The  ear  more  quick  of  apprehension  makes," 

says  Shakespeare.      I  overheard  some  muskrats  en- 
gaged in  a  very  gentle  and  affectionate  jabber  be- 
neath a  rude  pier  of  brush  and  earth  upon  which 
I  was  standing.      The  old,  old  story  was  evidently 
being    rehearsed    under    there,    but    the    occasional 
splashing  of   the   ice-cold  water  made  it  seem  like 
very  chilling  business;  still  we  all  know  it  is  not. 
Our  decoys  had  not   been  brought   in,   and  I  dis- 
tinctly heard   some   ducks  splash   in   among   them. 
The  sound  of  oar-locks  in  the  distance  next  caught 
my  ears.      They  were  so  far  away  that  it  took  some 
time  to  decide  whether  or  not  they  were  approach- 
ing.     But    they  finally  grew  more   distinct,  —  the 
steady,  measured  beat  of  an  oar  in  a  wooden  lock, 
a   very   pleasing   sound   coming  over  still,    moonlit 
waters.      It  was  an  hour  before  the  boat  ememed 
into   view  and   passed   my   post.      A  white,    misty 
obscurity  began  to  gather  over  the  waters,  and  in 
the  morning  this  had  grown  to  be  a  dense  fog.      By 
early  dawn  one  of  my  friends  was  again  in  the  box, 
and  presently  his  gun  went  bang!  bang!  then  bang! 
came  again  from  the  second  gun  he  had  taken  with 
him,  and  we  imagined  the  water  strewn  with  ducks. 
But  he  reported  only  one.      It  floated  to  him  and 
was   picked  up,   so  we   need   not   go  out.      In  the 
dimness   and   silence  we   rowed   up  and   down   the 


232  PEPACTON 

shore  in  hopes  of  starting  up  a  stray  cluck  that 
might  possibly  decoy.  We  saw  many  objects  that 
simulated  ducks  pretty  well  through  the  obscurity, 
but  they  failed  to  take  wing  on  our  approach.  The 
most  pleasing  thing  we  saw  was  a  large,  rude  boat, 
propelled  by  four  colored  oarsmen.  It  looked  as 
if  it  might  have  come  out  of  some  old  picture.  Two 
oarsmen  were  seated  in  the  bows,  pulling,  and  two 
stood  up  in  the  stern,  facing  their  companions,  each 
working  a  long  oar,  bending  and  recovering  and 
uttering  a  low,  wild  chant.  The  spectacle  emerged 
from  the  fog  on  the  one  hand  and  plunged  into  it 
on  the  other. 

Later  in  the  morning,  we  were  attracted  by  an- 
other craft.  We  heard  it  coming  down  upon  us 
long  before  it  emerged  into  view.  It  made  a  sound 
as  of  some  unwieldy  creature  slowly  pawing  the 
water,  and  when  it  became  visible  through  the  fog 
the  sight  did  not  belie  the  ear.  We  beheld  an 
awkward  black  hulk  that  looked  as  if  it  might  have 
been  made  out  of  the  bones  of  the  first  steamboat, 
or  was  it  some  Virginia  colored  man's  study  of  that 
craft?  Its  wheels  consisted  each  of  two  timbers 
crossing  each  other  at  right  angles.  As  the  shaft 
slowly  turned,  these  timbers  pawed  and  pawed  the 
water.  It  hove  to  on  the  flats  near  our  quarters, 
and  a  colored  man  came  off  in  a  boat.  To  our 
inquiry,  he  said  with  a  grin  that  his  craft  was  a 
"floating  saw-mill." 

After  a  while  I  took  my  turn  in  the  box,  and, 
with  a  life-preserver  for  a  pillow,  lay  there  on  my 


WINTER    PICTURES  233 

back,  pressed  down  between  the  narrow  sides,  the 
muzzle  of  my  gun  resting  upon  my  toe  and  its  stock 
upon  my  stomach,  waiting  for  the  silly  ducks  to 
come.  I  was  rather  in  hopes  they  would  not  come, 
for  I  felt  pretty  certain  that  I  could  not  get  up 
promptly  in  such  narrow  quarters  and  deliver  my 
shot  with  any  precision.  As  nothing  could  be  seen, 
and  as  it  was  very  still,  it  was  a  good  time  to  listen 
again.  I  was  virtually  under  water,  and  in  a  good 
medium  for  the  transmission  of  sounds.  The  bark- 
ing of  dogs  on  the  Maryland  shore  was  quite  audi- 
ble, and  I  heard  with  great  distinctness  a  Maryland 
lass  call  some  one  to  breakfast.  They  were  astir 
up  at  Mount  Vernon,  too,  though  the  fog  hid  them 
from  view.  I  heard  the  mocking  or  Carolina  wren 
alongshore  calling  quite  plainly  the  words  a  George- 
town poet  has  put  in  his  mouth,  —  "  Sweetheart, 
sweetheart,  sweet !  "  Presently  I  heard  the  whistle 
of  approaching  wings,  and  a  solitary  duck  alighted 
back  of  me  over  my  right  shoulder,  — just  the  most 
awkward  position  for  me  she  could  have  assumed. 
I  raised  my  head  a  little,  and  skimmed  the  water 
with  my  eye.  The  duck  was  swimming  about  just 
beyond  the  decoys,  apparently  apprehensive  that 
she  was  intruding  upon  the  society  of  her  betters. 
She  would  approach  a  little,  and  then,  as  the  still', 
aristocratic  decoys  made  no  sign  of  welcome  or  rec- 
ognition, she  would  sidle  off  again.  "Who  are 
they,  that  they  should  hold  themselves  so  loftily 
and  never  condescend  to  notice  a  forlorn  duck  1 '  1 
imagined  her  saying.      Should  I  spring  up  and  show 


234  PEPACTON 

my  hand  and  demand  her  surrender  1  It  was  clearly 
my  duty  to  do  so.  I  wondered  if  the  boys  were 
looking  from  shore,  for  the  fog  had  lifted  a  little. 
But  I  must  act,  or  the  duck  would  be  off.  I  began 
to  turn  slowly  in  my  sepulchre  and  to  gather  up 
my  benumbed  limbs;  I  then  made  a  rush  and  got 
up,  and  had  a  fairly  good  shot  as  the  duck  flew 
across  my  bows,  but  I  failed  to  stop  her.  A  man  in 
the  woods  in  the  line  of  my  shot  cried  out  angrily, 
"  Stop  shooting  this  way !  " 

I  lay  down  again  and  faced  the  sun,  that  had 
now  burned  its  way  through  the  fog,  till  I  was 
nearly  blind,  but  no  more  ducks  decoyed,  and  I 
called  out  to  be  relieved. 

With  our  one  duck,  but  with  many  pleasant 
remembrances,  we  returned  to  Washington  that 
afternoon. 


INDEX 


Abutilon,  or  velvet-leaf,  195,  207. 

Ailanthus,  192. 

Alder,  white,  187, 188. 

Amaranth,  195. 

Arbutus,  trailing,  or  mayflower,  86, 

94,  101,  102,  18G,  188,  190,  192. 
Arethusa,  188. 
Arkville,  3. 
Arnold,  George,  80. 
Ash,  98. 

Asters,  185,  192. 
Azalea,  pink,  or  pinxter-flower,  187, 

188. 
Azalea,  smooth,  188. 
Azalea,  white,  188. 
Azalea,  yellow,  188. 

Ball,  an  inexpensive,  29,  30. 

Bark-a-boom,  12. 

Baxter's  Brook,  26. 

Bay,  sweet,  187,  188. 

Bear,  black  {Ursus  americanus), 
attacked  with  a  club,  27,  28. 

Bear-weed,  199. 

Beattie,  James,  quotation  from,  87. 

Beaver  (Castor  fiber),  158. 

Bee.  See  Bumblebee,  Honey-bee, 
and  Sweat-bee. 

Bee,  solitary,  122-125. 

Beach,  100. 

Berries,  9. 

Bidens,  or  two-teeth,  or  pitchforks, 
208. 

Big  Beaver  Kill,  30. 

Big  Mountain,  215,  218,  219. 

Bindweed,  black,  196. 

Birch,  yellow,  25. 

Birds,  singing  at  night,  15,  16 ; 
morning  awakening  of,  16;  indi- 
viduality in  the  songs  of,  111,  17  ; 
in  poetry,  79-83, 86-92,  96-99, 103- 
112, 168-172  ;  process  of  hatching, 
91,  92 ;  leaving  the  nest,  92  ;  ar- 
rival in  spring,  136, 137  ;  151-153  ; 
love-making  among,  137-140  ;  war 
among,  137-140  ;  their  departure 
in  the  fall,  151  ;  a  good  season  for, 


163-166;    songs  of,   in   America 

and  in  England,  17(1. 
Birds   of    prey,   their    flight   when 

laden,  99,  136. 
Blackbird,  cow,  or  cowbird  (Molo- 

thrus  (iter),  57,  152. 
Blackbird,  crow,  or  purple  grackle 

(Quiscalus    quiscula),   notes    of, 

82. 
Blackbird,  European,  in  poetry,  81, 

83  ;  his  resemblance  to  the  Amer- 
ican robin,  82  ;  notes  of,  82,  83. 
Blackbird,  red-winged.      See  Star- 
ling, red-shouldered. 
Blackbird,    rusty.        See    Grackle, 

rusty. 
Bladderwort,  horned,  188,  189. 
Bluebird  (Sialia  sialis),  in  poetry, 

79,  86,  96, 100  ;  137,  152  ;  notes  of, 

96,  97  ;  nest  of,  155. 
Blue-weed,  or  viper's  bugloss,  192  ; 

travels  of,    197  ;    description   of, 

197,  202. 
Boat,  a  picturesque,  232. 
Bobolink   (Dolichonyx  or;/:ivonts), 

91,  104;  as  a  wooer,  138;  notes 

of,  17,  22. 
Bob-white.     See  Quail. 
Bouncing  Bet,  or  saponaria,  198. 
Boys,  2,  9-13,  18-20,  28,  29. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  85,  89  ;  as 

a  poet  of  nature,  90-97,  quotations 

from,  91,  97,  112. 
Buckwheat,  wild,  196. 
Bugloss,  192. 

Bugloss,  viper's.     See  Blue-weed. 
Bullfrog,  145,  151. 
Bumblebee,  53,  59,  60,  70,  71,  122, 

169,  209;  nest  of ,  154. 
Banting,  English,  170. 
Bunting,  indigo.     See  Indigo-bird. 
Buntinir,  snow,  or  sunwtluke  {Pleo- 

trqphenax  nivalis),  218. 
Burdock,  196,202,  210. 
Burns,  Robert,  quotation  from,  81. 
Butt  End,  219. 
Buttercup,  105,  202. 


236 


INDEX 


Caledonia  springs,  42. 

Calopogon,  188. 

Camping,  5,  6  ;  in  the  rain,  23-26  ; 

32. 
Campion,  bladder,  196. 
Cardinal    {Cardinal™    cardinalis), 

110  ;  notes  of,  16. 
Cardinal  flower.     See  Lobelia,  scar- 
let. 
Carrot,  wild,  195,  199,  202,  207. 
Catbird  {Galeoscoptes  carolinensis), 

in  poetry,  89,  104 ;  notes  of,  16, 

17,  24. 
Catnip,  193,  202. 
Catskill  Mountains,  66,  72. 
Cattle,  crossing  a  river,  32,  33 ;  as 

eaters  of  weeds,  210. 
Cedar-bird,  or  cedar  waxwing  {Am- 

pelis  cedroriwi),  57,  152,  210. 
Chamomile,  202. 
Chewink,  or    towhee    {Pipilo    ery- 

throphthalmus),  110,  137. 
Chickadee  {Parus  atricapillus),  218, 

219  ;  nest  of,  155. 
duckweed,  194 ;  at  the  antipodes, 

199,  202. 
Chicory,  or  succory,  199  ;  in  poetry, 

200  ;  202. 
Chipmunk  {Tamias  striatus),  131. 
Chippie.     See  Sparrow,  social. 
Chough,  170. 

Cicada,  or  harvest-fly,  118-120. 
Claytonia,  or  spring  beauty,  94,  206. 
Clematis,  wild,  185,  192. 
Clouds,  boat-shaped,  224. 
Clover,  105. 
Clover,  white,  195. 
Cochecton  Falls,  27. 
Cockle,  196. 
Colchester,  18. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  quotation 

from,  113. 
Coltsfoot,  94. 
Coltsfoot,  sweet,  188. 
Columbine,  185,  193. 
Companions,  outdoor,  2,  3.  . 
Cone-flower,  208. 
Coon.    See  Raccoon. 
Cormorant,  98,  99. 
Corn,  Indian,  195. 
Cowbird.     See  Blackbird,  cow. 
Cows.    See  Cattle. 
Cowslip.     See  Marigold,  marsh. 
Cowslip,  English,  84. 
Creeper,    brown    {Certhia    famili- 

aris  americana),  nest  of,  155. 
Crickets.    See  Tree-crickets. 
Crow,    American    {Corrus    ameri- 

canus),  gait  of,  57,  58  ;  130  ;  notes 

of,  82. 


Cuckoo  {Coccyzus  sp.),  heard  at 
night,  15,  16  ;  habits  of,  83 ;  in 
poetry,  83,  84  ;  notes  of,  15,  16. 

Cuckoo,  European,  171,  172. 

Cuckoo-buds,  172. 

Cuckoo-flower,  172. 

Cuckoo-pint,  172. 

Cypripedium,  191,  192.  (See  Lady's- 
slipper. 

Daffodil,  172,  186. 

Daisy,  English,  203. 

Daisy,  ox-eye,  192,  199,  210. 

Dandelion,  104,  105,  202,  209. 

Darnel,  202. 

Day,  a  white,  213,  214. 

Dead-nettle,  202. 

Delaware  River,  Pepacton    branch 

of.     See  Pepacton  River. 
Dentaria,  179. 
Deposit,  33. 
Dicentra,  or  squirrel  corn,  187,  188, 

192,  193. 
Dock,  curled-leaf,  205. 
Dock,  yellow,  202. 
Doctor,  the  (a  snake),  230. 
Dog,  Cuff  and  the  woodchucks,  160, 

162.     See  Greyhound  and  Hound. 
Dog,  farm,  hound  and,  143  ;  167. 
Dogbane,  188. 
Dove,    mourning   {Zenaidura    ma- 

croura),  88. 
Doves,  88. 
Downsville,  18. 
Dry  Brook,  3. 
Ducks,  feeding,  226 ;  227,  228,  230, 

231,  233,  234. 
Duck-shooting  on  the  Potomac,  223- 

234. 

Eagle,  chased  by  a  kingbird,  8  ;  32  ; 
flight  of  an,  58,  59  ;  115. 

East  Branch,  29,  30. 

Elecampane,  199,  202. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  quotations 
from,  44,  81,  82,  90,  96,  200,  209 ; 
his  knowledge  of  nature,  89,  90. 

England,  bird-songs  in,  176  ;  pedes- 
trianism  in,  176-178 ;  the  foot- 
paths of,  178,  180,  181  ;  the  high- 
ways of,  182. 

Esopus,  131. 

Eupatorium,  purple,  208. 

Falcon,  haggard,  171. 

Finch,  purple  {Carpodacus  purpu- 
reas), 218  ;  notes  of,  22. 

Fisherman,  an  ancient,  7. 

Fishes,  spring  movements  of,  136, 
142. 


INDEX 


237 


Fleabane,  or  whiteweed,  192,  199,  ! 
203. 

Flicker.     See  High-hole. 

Flowers,  wild,  in  poetry,  84-86,  90, 
92-94,  101, 102, 172, 186  ;  fragrant, 
185-193. 

Footpaths,  lack  of,  in  America,  175- 
178,  ISO  ;  English,  178,  180,  181  ; 
a  schoolboy's  footpath,  178,  179. 

Forenoon,  as  distinguished  from 
morning,  32. 

Fort  Washington,  224. 

Fox,  red  ( Vulpes  vulpes  var.  fulvus), 
100  ;  and  hound,  140-144  ;  158  ; 
hunting  a,  214-222  ;  favorite  sleep- 
ing places  of,  218 ;  hard  fare  in 
winter,  222,  223  ;  an  encounter  be- 
tween rivals,  223 ;  230. 

Fringed-orchis,  purple,  188,  191. 

Frog.    See  Bullfrog. 

Frog,  clucking.     See  Wood-frog. 

Frog,  peeping.  See  Hyla,  Picker- 
ing's. 

Garlic,  210. 

Gentian,  closed,  59,  60,  92. 

Gentian,  fringed,  59  ;  Bryant's  poem 

on,  92,  93  ;  185. 
Gill,  202. 
Girls,  30. 
Goethe,  79. 

Goldenrod,  92;  185,  192.  199,  201. 
Goldfinch,   American   (Spinus  tris- 

lis),  109 ;  pairing  habits  of,  138 ; 

notes  of,  109,  138. 
Goose-foot,  194. 
Grackle,    purple.      See    Blackbird, 

crow. 
Grackle,  rusty,  or  rusty  blackbird 

(Scolecophagus  carolinus),  notes 

of,  82. 
Grass,  the  natural  covering  of  the 

fields,  210. 
Grass,  harvest,  194. 
Grass,  quack,  194. 
Grass,  quitch,  202. 
Green  Cove  Spring,  41. 
Greyhound,  167. 
Ground-nut,  1S8. 
Grouse,  ruffed,  or  partridge  (Bonasa 

umbellus),   in    poetry,   96 ;    131  ; 

drumming  of,  89. 
"Gums,"  230. 
Gum-tree,  230. 


Harrisonburg,  Va.,  42. 
Harvard,  26. 

Harvest-fly.     See  Cicada. 

Hawk,  in  poetry,  lot).  See  Hen- 
hawk. 

Hawkfish.      See  Osprey,  American. 

Hawk's  Point,  32. 

Hedgehog,  171. 

Hedge-sparrow,  171. 

Hemlock,  poison,  202 

Henbane,  202. 

Hen-hawk,  108. 

Hepatica,  or  liver-leaf,  85  ;  the  first 
spring  flower,  94  ;  188  ;  an  inter- 
mittently fragrant  flower,  1 

Hercules,  50. 

Heron,  4,  5,  8. 

Heron,  great  blue  (Ardea  fierodias), 
20 ;  notes  of,  20,  24. 

High-hole,  or  golden-winged  wood- 
pecker, or  flicker  {Colaptes  aura- 
ius),  57,  109  ;  notes  of,  109  ;  nest 
of,  155. 

Highlands  of  the  Hudson,  the,  66. 

Holywell,  42. 

Honey,  flowers  which  yield,  192, 
193. 

Honey-bee,  a  product  of  civilization, 
53,  54  ;  wandering  habits  of,  54, 
55 ;  hunting  wild  bees,  55-75 ; 
method  of  handling,  05,  06 ;  as 
robbers,  70 ;  enemies  of,  75,  76 ; 
Virgil  on,  75-77;  122,  172,  173, 
192,  193,  210. 

Honeysuckle,  188,  193. 

Hooker,  Sir  Joseph,  199 

Hop-clover,  202. 

Hornet,  black,  117,  118. 

Hornet,  sand,  117-121. 

Hound,  fox  and,  140-144,  107,  214, 
219-223. 

Hound's-tongue,  202. 

Housatonic  River,  44. 

Houstonia,  or  innocence,  85,  186. 

Humble-bee.     Se>'  Bumblebee. 

Hummingbird,  ruby-throated  (Tro- 
ehilus    colubris),  in  poetry,    80 
nest  of,  210. 

Hunt,  Helen,  quotation  from,  201. 

Hyacinth,  wild,  1st. 

Hyla,  Pickering's,  or  peepimr  frog 
116,  144,  145;  arboreal  life  of 
150,  151. 

Hylas,  the  story  of,  50. 


Indigo-bird,  or  indigo  bunting  {Pas 
serina  cyaw'a),  110;  notes  of,  22 


Haggard,  171. 
Hancock,  29,  30,  33. 

Hare,  northern  (Lepus  americanus  (  Innocence.     S"  Houstonia 
var.  virginianus),  216.  Insects,  nocturnal,  135,  136 

Hares,  87,  88.  Iron-weed,  208. 


238 


INDEX 


Ivy,  173. 

Ivy,  poison,  210. 

Jack,  catching,  168. 

Jay,  blue  {Cyanocitta  cristata), 
130  ;  notes  of,  82. 

Jewel-weed,  203. 

Junco,  slate-colored.  See  Snow- 
bird. 

Katydids,  135,  136. 

Kingbird  (Tyrannus  tyrannus), 
chasing  an  eagle,  8 ;  as  a  bee- 
eater,  76  ;  210  ;  notes  of,  15. 

Kingfisher, belted  (Cerylealcyon),  8. 

Knapp,  Hon.  Charles,  27,  28. 

Knot-grass,  193. 

Lady's-slipper,  large  yellow  (Cypri- 

pedium  pubescens),  192. 
Lady's-slipper,    purple     (Cypripe- 

dium  acaule),  188. 
Lady's-slipper,  small   yellow  Cypri- 

pedium  parviflorum),  188. 
Lady's  tresses,  188. 
Lake  Oquaga,  33. 
Lamprey,  11,  12. 
Lapwing,  170,  171. 
Lark.     See  Skylark. 
Lark,   shore    or  horned    {Otocoris 

alpestris    and   O.   a.   praticola), 

86  and  note. 
Larkspur,  203. 
Laurel,  mountain,  185. 
Leeks,  210. 
Lettuce,  wild,  210. 
Linden,  188,  192. 
Linnsea,  90,  186,  188,  190. 
Live-forever,  202,  206,  207,  210. 
Liver-leaf.     See  Hepatica. 
Lobelia,  great  blue,  59. 
Lobelia,  scarlet,  or  cardinal  flower, 

59,  185. 
Locust-tree,  188,  192. 
Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  his 

inaccuracy  in  dealing  with  nature, 

96-99  ;  quotations  from,  97,  98. 
Loosestrife,  189. 
Loosestrife,  hairy,  188. 
Loosestrife,  spiked,  travels  of,  198 ; 

description  of,  198. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,   quotations 

from,    81,  83,    84,   96,   97,    103- 

105,   113;  his  fidelity  to  nature, 

102-105. 

Mallow,  202,  206. 
Mandrake,  188. 

Maple,   sugar,  188,   189  ;  fragrance 
of  its  blossoms,  190, 192. 


Marigold,  marsh,  84,  186. 

Martin,  purple  (Progne  subis),  106. 

Masque  of  the  Poets,  A,  quotation 

from,  111. 
Mayflower.     See  Arbutus,  trailing. 
Mayweed,  202. 
Meadowlark      (Sturnella    magna), 

86,  109,  152  ;  notes  of,  109,  153. 
Merganser,  hooded  (Lophodytes  cu- 

cullatus),  with  a  brood  of  young, 

31   32. 
Mice,  131,  216,  217. 
Milkweed,  199,  201,  210. 
Mink  (Putorius  vison),  8,  130. 
Mitchella  vine,  or   squaw-berry,  or 

partridge-berry,  188,  190. 
Moccasin,  230. 
Mockingbird   (3fimus  polygJottos), 

in  poetry,  107. 
Morning  and  forenoon,  distinction 

between,  32. 
Motherwort,  193,  202. 
Mount  Vernon,  224-226. 
Mouse,  field,  122. 
Mouse,  white-footed  (Calomys  amer~ 

icanus),  155 ;  tracks  of,  216. 
Mullein,   192,  202  ;    habits  of,  203, 

204. 
Mullein,  moth,  207,  208. 
Mullein,  white,  196. 
Musconetcong  Creek,  43. 
Muskrat  {Fiber  zibethicus),  8,  100  ; 

a  weatherwise   animal,   126-129 ; 

active  in  winter,  130  ;  231  ;   nests 

of,  126-129. 
Mustard,  wild,  193,  202. 

Nature,  the  poets'  intuitive  know- 
ledge of,  79 ;  Emerson's  know- 
ledge of,  89,  90  ;  Bryant's  know- 
ledge of,  90,  91 ;  Longfellow's  in- 
accuracy in  dealing  with,  97 
Whittier's  treatment  of,  99-101 
LoweU's  fidelity  to,  102-105  . 
Tennyson's  accurate  observations 
of,  106,  107;  Walt  Whitman  a 
close  student  of,  107-109  ;  the  po- 
etic interpretation  of,  111-114 ;  the 
scientific  interpretation  of,  113. 

Negro  girl,  a  conversation  with  a, 
229,  230. 

Nettle,  210. 

Nettle,  blind,  196. 

Nettle,  hemp,  202. 

Nighthawk       (Chordeiles      virgin- 
ianus),  13. 

Nightshade,  202. 

Note  in  the  woods,  a  new,  1 15,  116. 

Oak,  white,  192. 


INDEX 


2'S'J 


Onion,  wild,  195. 

Opossum     {Didelphis     virginia/in), 

158,  230. 
Orchids,  American    flora     rich     in, 

190,  191. 
Orchis,       fringed.      See    Fringed- 

orchis. 
Orchis,  showy,  18S,  190,  191. 
Oriole,  Baltimore  {Icterus  galbula), 

98 ;    as    a    fruit-destroyer,   1G4 ; 

notes  of,  16,  17  ;  nest  of,  104,  165. 
Orpine,  garden.     See  Live-forever. 
Orpines,  native,  206. 
Osprey,     American,    or   fish  hawk 

{Pandion  halaetus  carolinensis), 

feeding  on  the  wing,  31. 
Otter,  142. 
Oven-bird    {Seiurus  ouroeapillus), 

110;  song  of,  110. 
Owl,  screech  {Megascops  asio),  and 

shrike,  165,  166. 
Oxlip,  84. 

Pain,  in  relation  to  the  nervous  sys- 
tem, 174. 

Parsnip,  wild,  202. 

Partridge.     See  Grouse,  ruffed. 

Partridge  -  berry.  See  Mitchella 
vine. 

Partridge  Island,  32. 

Pepacton  River,  v,  vi ;  a  voyage 
down,  1-33. 

Pewee,  wood  (Conlopus  virens), 
Trowbridge's  poem  on,  88,  89. 

Phoebe-bird  (Sayornis  phcebe),  138, 
139,  152  ;  notes  of,  110 ;  nest  of, 
22,  110,  13S,  139,  155. 

Pigeon,  passenger  {Ectopistes  mi- 
gratorius),  88. 

Pigeons,  168,  169. 

Pigweed,  194,  202. 

Pine,  loblolly,  226. 

Pinxter-flower.     See  Azalea,  pink. 

Pipit,  American.     See  Titlark. 

Pitchforks.     See  Bidens. 

Plantain,  193,  202. 

Plantain,  narrow-leaved,  209. 

Pliny,  his  account  of  an  intermit- 
tent spring,  48,  49. 

Poets,  their  intuitive  knowledge  of 
nature,  79  ;  inaccuracies  and  feli- 
cities in  matters  of  natural  his- 
tory, 79-109  ;  their  interpretation 
of  nature,  111-114. 

Pogonia,  adder's-tongue,  1S8. 

Pokeweed,  203. 

Polygala,  fringed,  191. 

Pond-lily,  or  sweet-scented  water 
lily  (Xymphcea  odorata),  186,  188, 
192. 


Pond- lily,  yellow.  192. 
Poppy,  scarlet  field,  203. 
Porcupine,      Canadian      (/•Jret/n 

dorsatus),  158. 
Potomac   River,  duck-shooting   on, 

223-234. 
Primrose,  in  poetry,  84. 
Primrose,  evening,  84,  188,  189. 
Prince's  pine,  188. 
Purslane,  194,  202,  205. 
Pyrola.     See  Wiutergreen,  false. 


Quail,   or  bob- white  (Colinus 
ginianus),  225. 


7  ir- 


Rabbit,  gray  (Lepus  sylvaticus), 
154,  158,  169,  225. 

Rabbits,  87,  88. 

Raccoon,  or  coon  (Procyon  lotor)  57, 
131,  158,  179. 

Radish,  wild,  202, 207. 

Rafting  on  the  Delaware,  26,  27. 

Ragweed,  194  ;  a  troublesome  weed, 
201,  202. 

Rain,  arboreal,  14,  15 ;  summer,  21- 
26. 

Raspberry,  192. 

Rat,  wood  (Xeotoma  floridana), 
204. 

Redbird.     See  Cardinal. 

Redpoll  (Acanthis  linaria),  notes 
of,  218. 

Red-root,  207. 

Rhododendron,  185. 

River,  a  voyage  down  a,  1-33 ;  lone- 
liness of  the,  4,  5. 

Roads,  in  England  and  America, 
182. 

Robin,  American  (Merula  migrato- 
ria),  57,  103,  104  ;  in  poetry,  110, 
111,  137  ;  in  love  and  war,  139, 
140 ;  152,  203,  226,  228  ;  notes  of, 
16,  17,  22,  110,  111,  140;  nest  of, 
155. 

Rondout  Creek,  18. 

Roots,  like  molten  metal,  103. 

St.  John's-wort,  199,  202,  205. 

Salamander,  banded  (Amblystoma 
opacum),  122,  12& 

Salamander,  red,  116,  123. 

Salamander,  violet-colored  or  spot- 
ted {Ambly stoma  punctatum),  123. 

San  Antonio,  Texas,  42. 

Saponaria.     See  Bouncing  Bat. 

Sapsucker,  yellow  -  bellied.  See 
Woodpecker,  yellow-bellied. 

Sawmill,  a  floating,  232. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter 

Stdum  telephioidtv,  200. 


240 


INDEX 


Sedum  ternutum,  206. 

Shagbark,  103. 

Shairp,  John  Campbell,  his  Poetic 
Interpretation  of  Nature,  111,  113. 

Shakespeare,  quotations  from,  85, 
87,  113,  167-174,  207,  231  ;  his  ac- 
curacy in  observation,  87,  166- 
174. 

Shavertown,  13. 

Shawangunk  Mountains,  72. 

Shepherd's  purse,  202. 

Shrew,  216. 

Shrike,  165,  166,  218. 

Skunk  (Mephitis  mephitica),  154, 
158,  179. 

Skunk-cabbage,  94  n. 

Skylark,  86 ;  on  the  Hudson,  131- 
134  ;  song  of,  132-135. 

Snail,  147. 

Snake,  171. 

Snake,  black,  230. 

Snow,  a  landscape  of,  213,  214,  217  ; 
in  the  woods,  215,  216,  219-221. 

Snowbird,  slate-colored,  or  slate- 
colored  junco  (Junco  hyemalis), 
in  poetry,  96  ;  notes  of,  153. 

Snowflake.     See  Bunting,  snow. 

Sodom,  20. 

Sorrel,  sheep,  194,  202,  206. 

Sparrow,  bush  or  field  tSpizella  pu- 
silla),  163,  164. 

Sparrow,  English  (Passer  domesti- 
cus),  manner  of  courtship,  137. 

Sparrow,  social  or  chipping,  or 
"  chippie  "  (Spizella  socialis),  137, 
163. 

Sparrow,  song  (Melospiza  fasciata), 
152 ;  notes  of,  15-17,  22. 

Sparrow,  vesper  (Po'6co3tes  grami- 
neus),  rejecting  the  attentions  of 
a  skylark,  133,  134. 

Specularia,  clasping,  208,  209. 

Spider,  killing  a  bee,  75, 76  ;  a  musi- 
cal, 117. 

Spring,  sudden  coming  of,  151-153. 

Spring  beauty.     See  Claytonia. 

Springs,  paths  leading  to,  35,  36; 
their  universal  attractiveness,  36, 
37 ;  centres  of  greenness,  37 ; 
symbolism  of,  38 ;  locations  of, 
38,  39  ;  fondness  of  trout  for,  38, 
39 ;  physiology  of,  39,  40  ;  their 
mineral  elements,  40  ;  large,  40- 
43  ;  as  refrigerators,  44,  45  ;  coun- 
tries poor  in,  45,  46 ;  on  moun- 
tains, 46  ;  places  of  worship,  46, 
47  ;  various  kinds  of,  47,  48  ;  mar- 
velous, 48  ;  intermittent,  49  ;  in 
the  Idyls  of  Theocritus,  50,  51, 
Squaw-berry.    See  Mitchella  vine. 


Squirrel,    flying    (Sciuropterus    vo- 

lans),  155. 
Squirrel,  gray  (Sciurus    carolinen- 

sis  var.  leucolis),  130,  131. 
Squirrel,  Mexican  black,  156,  157. 
Squirrel,  red  (Sciurus  hudsonicus), 

131,  154,  156,  157,  217. 
I  Squirrel  corn.     See  Dicentra. 
Squirrels,  as  parachutes,  155-157. 
Star,  shooting,  84. 
Starling,    red-shouldered,   or    red- 
winged  blackbird,  notes  of,  82. 
Stedman,     Edmund     Clarence,    his 

Seeking  the  Mayflower,  101,  102. 
Stevenson,      Robert       Louis,      his 

Travels  with  a  Donkey,  14. 
Stick-seed,  202. 
Stones,  life  under,  122. 
Stramonium,  195,  202. 
Strawberries,  wild,  9,  23,  24. 
Succory.     See  Chicory. 
Sumac,  192. 
Swallow,  bank  (Clivicola  riparia), 

106. 
Swallow,    barn   (Chelidon  erythro- 

gaster),  106  ;  nest  of,  98. 
Swallow,      chimney,     or    chimney 

swift  (Chcetura  pelagica),  nest  of, 

18. 
Swallow,  cliff  (Petrochelidon  luni- 
frons),  in  poetry,  89, 106  ;  nest  of, 

17,  98. 
Swallow,  European,  172. 
Swallows,  in  poetry,  97,  106,  172. 
Sweat-bee,  123. 

Tales,  uses  of,  157,  158. 

Tansy,  193. 

Tare.     See  Vetch. 

Teasle,  199. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  quotations  from, 

83,  84,  88,   97,   106,  107;  a  good 

observer,  106,  107. 
Theocritus,  quotation  from,  50. 
Thistle,  Canada,  194,  199,  202,  205, 

210. 
Thistle,  common,  202,  204,  205. 
Thistle,  pasture,  188,  191. 
Thistle,  swamp,  205. 
Thomson,   James,   quotation  from, 

87. 
Thrasher,    brown   (Harpo?'hynchus 

rufus),  song  of,  110. 
Thrush,  hermit  (Turdus  aonalasch- 

kce  paUasii),  in  poetry,  104,  226  ; 

notes  of  17. 
Thrush,  wood  ( Turdus  mustelinus), 

notes  of,  16. 
Titlark,  or  American  pipit  (Anihus 

pensilvanieus),  86. 


INDEX 


211 


Toad,  144, 147, 148 n.,  174.   SeeTree- 

toad. 
Toad-flax,  192,  195,  202,  209,  210. 
Tobacco,  203. 
Tortoise,  117. 
Towhee.    Sre  Chewink. 
Tree-crickets,  135,  136. 
Tree-toad,  70,  145-150. 
Trout,    brook,    their    fondness   for 

springs,  38,  39,  42,  44,  96  ;  caught 

with  tickliiiL',  KIT. 
Trout-fishing,  23,  29. 
Trowbridge,  John    T.,    his   natural 

history,  88,  89  ;  quotations  from, 

89. 
Turkey,  wild  (.V'  leagris  gallopavo), 

225,  22<  I,  228,  229. 
Turtle,  117. 
Turtle-head,  92. 
Twin-flower.     See  Linnasa. 
Two-teeth.    See  Bideus. 

Velvet-leaf.     See  Abutilon. 

Venus's  looking-glass,  208. 

Vervain,  208. 

Vetch,  or  tare,  20(5. 

Violet,  in  poetry,  85. 

Violet,  Canada,  93,  188  ;  its  fra- 
grance, 189,  190;  191. 

Violet,  common  blue.  85,  185,  191. 

Violet,  English,  85.  185. 

Violet,  white,  85,  93,  188,  191. 

Violet,  yellow,  92-94. 

Vireo,  in  poetry,  110. 

Virgil,  on  honey-bees,  (50,  75-77 ; 
quotations  from,  97,  99,  200. 

Walking,    in    England,    17G-178  ;  a 

simple  and  natural  pastime,  182, 

183. 
Warbler,  yellow-rumped,  or  myrtle 

(Dendroica  coronata),  226. 
Wasp,  sand.     iSV  Hornet,  sand. 
Water-lily.    See  Pond-lily. 
Waxwing,  cedar.    S<>e  Cedar-bird. 
Weasel,  168. 
Weebutook  River,  44. 
Weeds,     191  ;     their     devotion     to 

man,  193 ;  the  gardener  and   the 


farmer  the  best   friei  <!-   of, 
194  ;    Nature's    makeshift,     194 
196 ;    neat    travelers,     196  199; 
their  abundance  in  America,  L99, 
200  :  oative  and  foreign,  - 
the  growth  of,  207  ;  escaped  from 
cultivation,  207  ;  beautiful, 
209  ;  uses  of  various,  209,  _'l" 
persist,  lit    and    universal     than 
grass,  210  ;  virtues  (  t,  210. 
Well  of  St.  Winifred,  12. 
Wheat,  winter,  94,  95. 
Whip-poor-will    (Antrostomtli  voci- 

ferus),  soul:  of.  1.",. 
Whiteweed.    See  Fleabane. 
Whitman,  Walt,  a  close  student  of 
American  nature,   107-109;  quo- 
tations from,  in;.  108. 
Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  as  a  poet 
of    nature,     99-101  ;     quotations 
lrom,  99-101,  201. 
Winchester,  Va.,  41. 
Wintergreen,  false,  <>r  pyrola,  188. 
Wintergreeu,  spotted,  188. 
Witch-hazel,  93. 
Woodchuck     {Arctomi/s      monax). 

158-103. 
Wood-frog,  144. 

Woodpecker,  in  poetr\.  105,  106. 
Woodpecker,  downv  [Dryobates pu- 
bescent), 220. 
Woodpecker,  golden-winged.      > 

High-hole. 
Woodpecker,  yellow-bellied,   or  yel- 
low-bellied sapsucker   [Sphyrapi- 
cus  varius),  drumming  of,  106. 
Wood-pigeons,  88. 
Wood-sorrel,  common,  206. 
Wood-sorrel,  yellow,  206 
Wordsworth,     William,     quotations 

from,  113,  186, 
Wren,  Carolina  [Thryothonu  />  <lo- 

vicianus),  notes  of ,  233. 
Wren,  house   (Troglo</;/t' s    ai.'<Io>i), 
notes  of,  16  ;  nest  of,"  155. 


Yarrow,  202. 
Yellow- jacket,  117. 
Yew,  American,  81 


* 


# 


f 


